Princess In The Palace

9. Their Next Encounter

Chapter 9. (wow now this is a quick update lol compared to the previous one because I feel guilty xD I'll try to keep up at this speed! try is the keyword)

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Recap: In the previous chapter, Yì Rán surprised everyone attending Empress Dowager's. For people who were veterans in the palace, they were surprised at the girl who looked exactly the same as the young Empress Dowager. For those younger generations, they were shocked at how similar she looked to Empress Dowager's portraits. Empress Yáng wanted to make her her servant to keep an eye on the girl, but Empress Dowager cut her to it. Yì Rán was given three days to spend with family before she was fetched to the palace. Then, Empress Dowager left her under the care of her lady-in-waiting, Jǐng Er.

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She was changed into layers of dresses like Jǐng Er's. Seeing that they dressed in similar dress, she grinned from ears to ears like a little child.

"What are you grinning about?" Jǐng Er asked nonchalantly, her fingers digging deep into a plain box of jewelries. She fished out a bronze hairpin and turned the girl's body around as she removed the wooden pin from her hair, letting her natural ankle-length hair drop down to the floor.

"Be-because we are wearing the same dre-"

"Pay attention. This is how you will do your hair from today onwards. I will not be repeating."

"O-oh."

When Jǐng Er was done, obviously Yì Rán could not follow what she was doing. She was just staring blankly at her senior who in return closed her eyes and secretly sighed. Why would the Empress Dowager choose a girl like this to be her servant? She was beautiful indeed, she looked like Empress Dowager's portraits she saw before. Was that really the only reason?

"Practise yourself. I have to help Her Highness prepare for her afternoon nap."

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"Your Highness, your servant dares herself to ask a question." Jǐng Er suddenly voices up in the middle of taking off Empress Dowager's outer layers of dresses, down till the last piece of white robe. She gathered all of them together and hung them on a piece of wood, brushing off the creases finely and neatly.

"Why did I take her to be my servant?" Empress Dowager sat on the cushion and faced the mirror which reflected her own face. She saw her lady-in-waiting coming up behind her and pulled off all the hair pins.

"Yes," Jǐng Er replied as she placed the golden hairpins on the piece of silk cloth on the table. Her fingers grabbed a comb from the table and brushed her master's hair gently, ensuring that no part of her hair was entangled in a knot.

"Jǐng Er...you have followed me for so long, even before Jǐng Xī passed away." But you did not follow me as long as Jǐng Xī did. That foolish loyal servant of mine who had followed me way before I became Consort Xīn, from when I was at the Xīn manor. She went through everything with me, she knew me best, but she left me early.

"Yes?"

"Nothing. I never had a daughter, I just want to know how it feels like to raise one." Of course that was only one of her many reasons. She wanted to raise her into someone else who was definitely not herself, not Xīn Lián Huán. She had walked down the cursed path of no return and she did not want to see someone else ending up in the same place as her, especially when she had the same face as her. Her regrets, her pain, she wanted to raise her to be someone who would not bear any of it.

"And also, Empress clearly wanted to take her in and dispose of her because of her beauty. How can I stand aside and see someone who look like myself suffer and die?" And she was also afraid that the Emperor would really actually make her his concubine. After what had happened between her and the late Emperor Shì(Shiv), she was too afraid of herself, too afraid of anyone who was too similar to herself. She was afraid that the girl would one day become someone like her. So she had to take her in instead. Honestly, all the grudges, hatred and suffering in the palace began with her. She had to find a way to end everything, before it stretched longer than three generations.