Night had only just fallen, and in the sparsely populated Blessings and Longevity Palace, only a little lamplight remained in the Bedchamber.
Dressed in a nightgown, the Empress Dowager sat at the window facing the Rear Garden, with the great ginkgo tree blotting out the sky before her, and leisurely played a white jade flute:
"Toot~ woo-woo... toot..."
Hongyu stood obediently behind her and draped a shawl over her shoulders. She wanted to offer a flattering remark, but unfortunately, she really could not tell what tune the Empress Dowager was playing. On second thought, she gave up.
Alone late at night, facing the cold moon deep within the palace, life really was rather dull.
The Empress Dowager amused herself by the window, but before sleepiness arrived, she spotted a shadow rising and falling over the Palace Pavilions instead.
"Hmm?"
The Empress Dowager stopped playing and lifted her eyes to look. She had thought that audacious guard Ye Jingtang had come to kick at a widow's door again, and a trace of delighted surprise entered her eyes. But once she saw that it was a white figure, all her interest vanished.
Still, for the sake of their many years of friendship, the Empress Dowager hopped down from the windowsill, wrapped herself in her cloak, stepped out beneath the eaves, and asked:
"Shui'er, what brings you here?"
Rustle, rustle-
Perfected Person Xuanji, dressed in a snow-white gown, passed over the staggered Palace Pavilions and landed below the Bedchamber steps, a small parcel in her hand.
Although Perfected Person Xuanji was quite provocative around her own people, to outsiders she was still Great Wei's Imperial Preceptor and could not spoil her image as an enlightened master. When she had gone shopping for undergarments with Qinghe, she had used Qinghe as a shield and