Drums and music rang out at the Jia Family estate, guests filled every seat, and joy suffused every corner.
Concubine Zhao glittered with jewels, the exquisite and glorious First-Rank Phoenix Crown upon her head, as she paid her respects in the Jia Family Ancestral Hall.
Jia Mu burned incense and kowtowed, murmuring:
"May this comfort the Imperial Ancestors: the Jia Family has produced another First-Rank Madam. This is a sign of our family's flourishing fortunes!"
"May our ancestors protect Jia Huan of the Jia clan, and may the Jia Family prosper forever!"
When the Old Madam left the ancestral hall, the Capital's powerful nobles gathered around her again, offering solicitous greetings.
Jia Mu's kindly face beamed with a smile she could not contain.
Of course she knew that the hereditary nobility excelled at flattering the high and trampling the low, but Brother Huan's prestige now towered to the heavens, and the Jia Family basked in his glory!
"Madam!"
Qingwen approached Concubine Zhao, gazed at the magnificent Phoenix Crown, and said with a bright smile:
"Perhaps you'll get to wear a Super-Rank Phoenix Crown someday."
Concubine Zhao glowed with delight, but she knew her own limits and chided her:
"You wicked girl! First rank is as high as the title goes!"
"The Old Madam is nominally a Super First-Rank Imperially Invested Lady of the court, but that's only a title and a Mandate Scroll. She has neither a Phoenix Crown nor a fief."
In practice, the Old Madam was also a First-Rank Madam!
The women nodded at this.
In all of Great Qian's history, there had been only six Super First-Rank Imperially Invested Ladies.
They had been either the wives or mothers of powerful ministers who governed as regents, or the wives or mothers of dukes who had secured the realm!