The fifteen-year-old Little Commandery Princess Jiang Yu skipped back to her courtyard, where a matron from Northern Qi's imperial household waited quietly beneath a tree.
"Your Highness, Prince Xiu of the Sima imperial family sent someone with a gift of apology. He said he had been presumptuous with Your Highness earlier and hoped you would be magnanimous enough not to hold it against him."
"Huh? Is he sick in the head? Didn't I beat him hard enough?"
"Your Highness... you must not behave so improperly."
"I know, I know..."
Jiang Yu plopped down on a stone stool and reached out to open a brocade box on the table...
"That bastard! I'm going to slaughter him!"
The matron leaned over for a look and nearly laughed aloud. The brocade box was extraordinarily splendid, worked with gold threads and silver filigree, lavish and imposing. Yet inside it... was an exquisitely ornate rattle drum!
A golden drum with an alligator-skin body, two enormous pearls for the swinging beaters, and a blue jade handle.
But however splendid a rattle drum might be, it was still just a baby's toy. Sima Xiu had been forced to swallow his grievance after the Little Commandery Princess beat him until his nose streamed blood... Unable to stomach it, he had used an apology as an excuse to send this thing and humiliate the headstrong commandery princess of Northern Qi!
Jiang Yu grabbed the rattle drum and was about to throw it away when the matron hurriedly stopped her. "Your Highness, it is a gift of apology, after all. If you cannot swallow your anger... this old servant will spread word of this incident. In the end, it will still be Sima Xiu who loses face!"
"Good! Lay it on thick and humiliate him properly!"
"As you command... Your