Legend of Concubine's Daughter Minglan 知否知否 应是绿肥红瘦

72. Half-Day Tour at Guangji Temple (2)

Seeing a pretty girl inside, the three sisters became hesitant to walk in. Molan took a glance at Rulan who squared her shoulders and stepped in. Molan and Minglan followed up. They sat down on a Luohan bench (a long coach) near the window, then girl and woman servants flooded in, taking out the tea and refreshments they brought on carriages and putting them on the tea table. They then went out again to fetch hot water for making tea.

The girl made no reaction to this scene and just enjoyed her own tea. Minglan examined her closely, finding that she was wearing a peach-red slanting gown made of Hangzhou brocade belted at waist. Around the sleeve and collar was grey-mouse fur. The gown was fully-embroidered with intertwining flowers of gold line. Above her feet, a moonlight-white skirt could be seen. Near her chest hang a huge pure gold auspicious lock, the brilliance of which made people dazzled. On her head was a pair of gilded jade hairpin with pearls. The girl also examined the three sisters when she lowered her head and she found that all of them wore luxurious clothes and a pure gold yingluo-patterned necklace with three jade locks which displayed top quality. The behaviors of the three sisters were also well-mannered and graceful.

After some tea, Molan stepped forward to talk with the girl, who quickly revealed her family background, in a restricted way, "My family name is Rong; alias name is Feiyan. My father is Earl Fuchang."

Molan paused for a second and smiled, "You must be the niece of Imperial Concubine Rong."

Rulan and Minglan showed different expressions because a family like this sounded cheerful but in fact was miserable. One of the daughters of the bricklayer family had been chosen to be a concubine of the Emperor and the family got entitled. However, it was known to all that unless the daughter could give birth to a son that could be entitled as crown prince or imperial lord, otherwise this kind of entitlement couldn't be inherited. The luckier ones could inherit the entitle for three to five generations while the less lucky ones could only maintain the title for one generation and degraded as folks. Therefore, usually a family like hers would waste no time trying to forge marriage or nurturing talents in order to prolong the wealth and prosperity of the family.

Though Imperial Concubine Rong was most favored by the Emperor, who was too old to be capable, so she had no children for now and forever, leaving the family with a question mark regarding its road to marriage building.

Rong Feiyan smiled, saying, "My brother and sister-in-law took me here. There are too many people in that room and the noise gives me headache, so I find this quiet room to take a rest. I apologize if I've bothered you."

Although the words were polite, her expression obviously looked overbearing. Rulan had always hated those who were better than herself, so she just enjoyed her own tea and didn't joined the chatting. Minglan, on the other hand, was reminded that the man on horseback whipping folks called Rong Xian was her brother, so, feeling disgusted, she didn't want to talk with her either. Only Molan was there trying hard to socialize. Her cautious and pleasing manner intrigued Rong Feiyan and the two gradually touched on Sheng family's life in Deng Prefecture.

"You have kinship with Qi family?" Brilliance burst out from Rong Feiyan's eyes. She immediately felt herself having overacted, so she held back a little and asked cautiously, "Have you met with their second young lord?"

Molan smiled, "Of course we have. Back in Deng Prefecture, he went to school with our eldest brother. We were also invited to the birthday party of Marquis Xiangyang before the Spring Festival...We also met with Sixth Princess and her daughter, Xianzhu Jiacheng."

Rong Feiyan snorted a bit and said unhappily, "Shouldn't a family member of a locally-inhabiting imperial lord stay in their own land? Why did they keep coming to the capital? Our ancestral rules would be broken in this way."