"Your Highness the Crown Princess, Gu Siyi requests to see you." Shen Xihe had just finished reading Shen Yueshan's letter when Hongyu's voice came from outside.
"Let her in." Shen Xihe put down the letter, stretched out his hand and walked out with Biyu's support.
Gu Zexiang did not come alone, but brought with her several palace maids from the Clothing Department of the Shangfu Bureau to take measurements for Shen Xihe.
The Shangfu Bureau was responsible for the clothes of the women in the harem. Shen Xihe was pregnant, and her clothes changed every month. Even though the Shangfu Bureau came frequently, no one cared.
After taking the measurements and deciding on the style, material, and pattern, Gu Zexiang was about to take her maid away when Shen Xihe said, "Gu Siyi, I also make clothes privately. I have some patterns for you to take a look at."
"Yes." Gu Zexiang lowered her head and followed Shen Xihe to the room where Shen Xihe usually did needlework. "Your Highness, are you going to inquire about the late queen?"
"Do you have any idea?" Shen Xihe asked.
Over the years, Gu Zexiang has been in the palace, first in the Yunting Palace where criminals were imprisoned, and later in the palace's complex and chaotic six bureaus and twenty-four departments. No matter where she was, she had a firm foothold. She was the future female official in charge of the palace that Shen Xihe was optimistic about.
"Your Highness, I met an old woman when I was in the Ye Ting Palace." Gu Zexiang thought for a moment and said, "She was sometimes crazy, and there were many crazy people in the Ye Ting Palace, so no one cared about her. She was sometimes sober, and I spent some time with her later.
She once told me that she had taken care of the late queen. The late queen passed away before Your Majesty ascended the throne. Before the prince was three years old, there were people left by the late queen by his side, but these people were later released from the palace due to age, and their whereabouts are difficult to trace.
This person made a mistake while taking care of the crown prince, and was demoted to the Ye Ting Palace."
"Where is she?" Shen Xihe asked.
"She died of illness five years ago." Gu Zexiang said as she took out a jade pendant. "People in the Ye Ting Palace have lives worth less than grass. No one even looks at them after they die. I was the first to discover her when she died. She was holding this jade pendant in her hand. I was also the daughter of an official, so I had some vision. I knew this thing was extraordinary, so I kept it."
Gu Zexiang handed the jade pendant to Zhenzhu, and Zhenzhu handed it to Shen Xihe.
The jade pendant is made of top-grade mutton-fat jade and is carved with a peony. The carving is exquisite and lifelike, with the stamens blooming and translucent.
Such a thing is not something that even an ordinary official family might have, let alone a criminal slave.
"The late queen's maiden name contained the character 'Shao'," Zhenzhu reminded.
Shen Xihe knew it without Zhenzhu’s reminder.
Holding the tassel of the jade pendant, Shen Xihe was silent for a moment before asking, "Did she say anything?"
Gu Zexiang shook her head: "She is usually insane, doesn't talk, and bites whoever she catches. When she is awake...she just curls up in one place and stares blankly at another place."
The only words he said to her were during the Chinese New Year that year, when she brought a bowl of Lao Wan over and she let slip that she had served the Queen and the East Palace and had eaten even finer things than this.
She immediately realized that she had said something wrong and quickly looked at Gu Zexiang. Gu Zexiang heard it but remained calm and did her own thing, as if she didn't hear it.
"What's her name?" Shen Xihe asked again.
Gu Zexiang still shook her head: "I don't know either. When I entered the Ye Ting Palace, she had already been there for more than ten years."