The girls nearby who heard Qi Leyun speak immediately laughed softly too, exchanging meaningful glances with each other.
The queue became a bit livelier in an instant.
The matrons all felt somewhat helpless. Although there was no such edict, it was this group of girls who first learned about the empress’s banquet and brought the news home. Thinking again that the empress was Chu Zhao, they all guessed what this meant.
Normally, when noble ladies entered the palace, they brought at most their daughters-in-law. Girls of fourteen or fifteen like these were not brought. This time it wouldn’t do—they had to bring them.
Look at these children—they really had no sense of propriety.
“What’s there to fear?” Qi Leyun muttered. “Back then, she had even less propriety than we did. She won’t blame us.”
These words were truly damnable. Lady Qi couldn’t care about propriety anymore and raised her hand to hit her: “Say one more sentence and see if I dare send you back! I’m your mother, and no one can blame me. Besides—how improper you all were to her back then, how unfriendly—have you all forgotten?”
Affairs between girls—the elders didn’t mind, but that didn’t mean they didn’t know. It was just that most didn’t need to intervene.
“How did you treat her before? She had just arrived then, unfamiliar with people and places, and didn’t dare do anything. Now it’s different.”
“Today she’s having you reminisce about old times—which old times she’s reminiscing about, who can say for sure?”
After her mother’s storm of words, Qi Leyun was dazed. Yes, she had almost forgotten—what kind of temperament did Chu Zhao have? When Liang Qin cursed her father a few times, she both beat and scolded her, and in the end, the entire Liang family was convicted and exiled to the border region—
Before the Chu Garden literary gathering, their attitude toward Chu Zhao had been even worse than Liang Qin’s!
Could she really be settling old scores with them today?
In an instant, the girls all hunched their shoulders and looked carefully ahead—at this point they had reached the inner palace. All the noble ladies stopped, having to wait for the empress to ascend her throne before they could enter the hall.
However, there was one exception.
A girl passed through the crowd and walked forward, step by step ascending the stairs. Her clothing and dress were quite ordinary, but the girls recognized her at a glance.
Chu Tang.
“Chu Tang actually came too.” Someone hadn’t reacted yet and muttered aloud.
These words were immediately cursed as nonsense in the hearts of those around her.
Although since Chu Zhao was made empress, the Chu clan had disappeared from the capital as if their doors and windows were tightly closed, once they opened the door and stepped out, they were imperial relatives.
For this banquet, the Chu clan would naturally come too. Although the Chu couple still didn’t appear, only a girl came.
This girl was Chu Zhao’s cousin—a proper and legitimate imperial relative!
Chu Tang walked up the stairs with her head lowered. She could feel countless dense gazes from behind—envious, awed—
She, Chu Tang, had always followed behind others, casting envious, awed, and ingratiating gazes. She had indeed dreamed of being treated this way by others, but she never expected this day would come so quickly.
Moreover, it was even more stunning than any scene she could have dreamed of.
Chu Tang raised her head and looked toward the great hall ahead, where she could faintly see a woman sitting upright within.
……
……
Chu Zhao could see the light in Chu Tang’s eyes, but she was somewhat distracted. In that lifetime when she became empress, the first time Chu Tang saw her, there had also been light in her eyes.
However, that light was looking at the palace hall, not at her.
When looking at her, Chu Tang made no effort to hide her coldness.
But now it was different.
“How should I perform the courtesy?” Chu Tang asked in a low voice, tentatively bending her knee in a bow. “I greet Your Majesty the Empress.”
A’Le laughed from the side: “Miss Ah Tang, you’re a young lady of the capital—don’t you know either?”
Chu Tang sighed: “Not every young lady in the capital has the qualifications to enter the imperial palace. This is my first time coming here.”
As she spoke, she looked around, her expression amazed.
“This is the imperial palace hall.”
Though she said this, besides excitement, even with so many palace maids and eunuchs standing with hands hanging at their sides in the hall, Chu Tang didn’t feel nervous. Perhaps it was because that girl sat in the center, wearing empress ceremonial robes, holding a cup of tea in her hands, as relaxed and at ease as if she were at home.
Chu Zhao smiled: “These things aren’t urgent. You can learn them at a glance. Sit first.”
Chu Tang responded affirmatively and sat below Chu Zhao.
“Is everything well at home?” Chu Zhao asked.
Since entering the palace that night, she had never gone out again. The Chu family’s side was watched by people Xiao Man had left behind. Any instructions she had were also conveyed through Xiao Man, such as locking up Chu Lan and forbidding anyone to see him.
Chu Zhao asked again: “Uncle didn’t get angry, did he?”
Chu Tang nodded and shook her head: “Everything is well at home. Father didn’t make a fuss and hasn’t said anything.”
She specifically added this point to indicate she knew nothing.
In fact, when she saw her father’s terrified appearance and thought back to what she experienced that night—the young emperor was hiding in their home and was brought out by Chu Zhao in a fighting escape—what did this mean?
It meant the young emperor had nearly encountered danger in their home.
And this danger must have been related to Chu Lan.
Otherwise, when Chu Zhao was rewarded by the late emperor for her meritorious protection, how could Chu Lan not rush out to claim credit? Instead, he was so frightened he fainted, mumbling that he was finished, his whole family was finished too.
Chu Tang immediately locked up Chu Lan and Lady Jiang, drove away all the people around them, and personally watched over them herself, ensuring not half a word of information would leak from the Chu residence.