Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“This is… Cui Shangyi?”

Seeing that Hang Lanque still had not made Doudou let go of me, the Empress looked rather awkward. She turned to him and said, “This is Shangyi Cui, a clanswoman of the Imperial Consort. Do not frighten her. Hurry and make your pet get down.”

“Cui?” Hang Lanque suddenly gave a laugh.

He shook his head, as if he could hardly believe it. He glanced at the Imperial Consort, then at the Empress, and after confirming that not a single face showed the slightest sign of pretense, he fixed his eyes on me and said, each word deliberate, as if interrogating me, “A daughter of the Cui clan. What an extraordinary background!”

I could not let him keep talking in the main hall. Heaven knew when he would lose his mind and blurt out that absurd affair between us.

I patted Su Doudou on the back of the head and said under my breath, “Get down!”

Su Doudou had not seen me in far too long. Perhaps it missed me terribly, or perhaps Hang Lanque had spoiled it too much and never disciplined it properly. In any case, it did not listen to me.

So I snapped at the eunuchs standing not far from me, “Are you not going to come take it down?”

I was the strictest Shangyi official in the palace. These palace attendants feared me even more than they feared the consorts. After all, offending a consort was only a matter of one moment, one incident. Offend me, and they could forget about ever having an easy life in the palace.

With that shout, not only did the eunuchs rush over in fright to pull Su Doudou away, Su Doudou itself seemed to remember how stern I was. Startled, it loosened its arms and jumped down to the floor.

Under normal circumstances, I should have responded directly to Hang Lanque’s “praise,” then gracefully apologized and withdrawn. But I was far too anxious. I bent stiffly in a bow and said, “I have behaved improperly before the throne. I should leave the banquet and accept punishment. I ask Her Majesty the Empress for permission.”

Consort Cui noticed something was wrong with me as well and said to the Empress, “Her Majesty the Empress…”

The Empress waved a hand. “It is no matter. Cui Shangyi, you may withdraw first.”

But Hang Lanque called out loudly, “Wait!”

I absolutely did not wait.

I turned a deaf ear to Hang Lanque’s words and kept walking. Several palace attendants under me, along with Yan Sizan, quickly followed me out.

What a joke. The Bureau of Ceremonies was the place that cared most about rules. The head of the inner palace and host of the banquet, the Empress herself, had agreed to let me leave. Why would I listen to orders from a military officer who did not understand court etiquette?

I was leaving! I was leaving, and not only was I leaving, I wished I could run!

“Eek, eek-”

Su Doudou cried out a few times behind me. It seemed to want to follow, but my subordinates scolded it, and then it stopped making noise.

Su Doudou was, after all, only a small animal. It could neither speak nor write. Even if it recognized me, it did not matter. Unlike Hang Lanque…

As soon as the Flower Festival banquet ended, news spread throughout Shangjing that “the feud between the Empress and the Imperial Consort has deepened, and the Empress’s younger brother quarreled with the Imperial Consort’s aunt in court before parting on bad terms.”

I applied for leave in advance, and on my way home, I made a detour to my private residence in Shangjing.

Two hours later, Hang Lanque entered my residence.

I knew that with his personality, once he discovered that I had deceived him back then, he would never let it go easily.

So after the banquet, he was bound to keep an eye on me.

I had come to my private residence on purpose, precisely to wait for him.