Summoned

Noticing the Elder Princess's sneer, Hua Meng lowered her eyes without betraying any emotion.

Now was not the time.

Hua Meng and the others did not stay long at the Empress Dowager's Chaohuang Palace. The Elder Princess had lingered there, hoping to secure a title from the Empress Dowager for her beloved daughter, and she disliked the sight of them, hinting at every turn that they should leave. The Empress Dowager also wanted Hua Meng and the others to hurry back and nurse themselves to health so they could bear her grandsons.

When Hua Meng left the Empress Dowager's Chaohuang Palace, she saw Consort Wan, who also lived in Sparrow Plume Palace, waiting for her outside the hall.

Consort Wan held a title and had entered the palace before Hua Meng, so Hua Meng naturally had to defer to her.

Hua Meng stepped forward, curtsied and addressed her as "elder sister," then smiled and said, "Were you waiting for me, Elder Sister?"

Consort Wan's temperament suited the title Emperor Jing'an had given her: she was a gentle woman. Though her looks were unremarkable, the smile on her lips when she smiled was deeply touching.

"You've only just entered the palace, little sister, and I was afraid you weren't familiar with things, so I waited to accompany you." Having said this, Consort Wan looked at Hua Meng's pretty, lively face and recalled how she had talked back to the Elder Princess in the hall. Unable to help herself, she laughed and said, "My elder sister sent word asking me to look after you, but I never expected you to have such a temperament."

At the mention of her elder sister, Hua Meng vaguely recalled that the eldest daughter-in-law of her master's master, Minister Lin, had a cousin on the side of an uncle born to a concubine who had entered the palace nine years ago.

Noticing that Consort Wan's features bore some resemblance to the eldest daughter-in-law of her master's master, whom she called Auntie, Hua Meng suddenly found herself unsure how to address Consort Wan.

By the generations in her master's master's family, Consort Wan was her elder.

Consort Wan, already twenty-four, could tell at a glance why Hua Meng had fallen silent. She raised a hand and pinched Hua Meng's cheeks, which had tightened with awkwardness, then teased her with a smile. "There's no need to trouble yourself, little sister. Naturally, we follow the palace rules now."

With Consort Wan's reassurance, Hua Meng naturally stopped worrying over it.

The two chatted along the way, and once they returned to Sparrow Plume Palace, Consort Wan told Hua Meng about the current power structure in the palace.

"The highest-ranking consort in the palace now was once the crown prince's secondary consort. She's Consort Qi now and lives in Honghu Palace. She's proud, so it's best not to provoke her if you can help it. Consort Ru entered the palace three years ago. She's beautiful, and she only held the rank of pin when she first entered. She lives in White Egret Palace, and the emperor used to visit her quite often. There's also Consort Ying, who entered the palace the same year I did. She's very straightforward and is now the presiding consort of Three Green Palace. When we have time, I'll take you to visit her for a chat."

Consort Wan had only mentioned those three, but that did not mean they were the only women in Emperor Jing'an's harem.

Before Emperor Jing'an ascended the throne at seventeen, he had a secondary consort as crown prince and several concubines. Later, in the three consort selections before Hua Meng entered the palace, fewer than twenty candidates were chosen in total.

But now, aside from those three and Consort Wan herself, the others had either failed to rise to high rank or had already perished, their fragrance faded and their jade shattered.

"There aren't many of the other guiren, changzai and daying either. But you and I are the only ones in Sparrow Plume Palace, so it's fairly peaceful."

When Consort Wan finished, Hua Meng understood what she meant.

She knew that although Emperor Jing'an was extremely eager to have children, he had not brought a great number of candidates into the palace as the late emperor once had.

Including this year's selection, the total number of women in his harem had never exceeded thirty.

That looked like quite a few, but counting the women still alive and those newly admitted this year, there were only a dozen or so.

Of those dozen or so, apart from the five newcomers, the only ones who still saw Emperor Jing'an every month were the three Consort Wan had just mentioned and Consort Wan herself.

After saying all this, Consort Wan was about to mention Emperor Jing'an's taboos and give Hua Meng more pointers, when Xiao Jiangzi, the apprentice of Wei Fugui, the chief eunuch at Emperor Jing'an's side, arrived at Sparrow Plume Palace.

"His Majesty's verbal decree: Consort Hua is summoned to Phoenix Approaches Palace to attend upon him."

On hearing the decree Xiao Jiangzi had brought, Consort Wan immediately looked at Hua Meng. She was somewhat worried, wondering whether the emperor had learned what Hua Meng had said at Chaohuang Palace that morning.

Though over the past few years she had come to know that the emperor disliked the Elder Princess, the Elder Princess was nevertheless his elder sister, and her birth mother had raised him for several years.

Seeing Consort Wan's worried gaze, Hua Meng remained calm.

She knew full well that Emperor Jing'an had extremely little affection for his elder sister, the Elder Princess, either.

Still, thinking that she would soon be attending upon him, she hesitated, unsure whether she should give him the Spirit Spring to drink.

She had offended the Elder Princess today. If she did not conceive a child soon, would the Elder Princess's schemes from her previous life happen again?