Chapter 171: Chapter 171 - Lady Nuan

“Lady of Yan!” Lady Nuan gave a salute to Song Yixiao and Nie Wuying, speaking gently, “Two days ago, the Empress sent many things to me, and a few of my favorites were said to be from you. I can’t thank you enough!”

She spoke Great Rui dialect. Her voice was as clear and sweet as herself, gladdening the heart and refreshing the mind, but there was a foreign accent between the words.

Although Song Yixiao never regarded herself as the most beautiful woman in the world, she felt she was equal to lilies and roses. However, she was slightly overshadowed by Lady Nuan’s beauty!

“Luckily, I’ve already made it clear to Jian Xubai before. Otherwise, how could I not be suspicious of him after I saw such a stunning beauty here?” She pondered in her mind, pinched her palm without others noticing and smiling, “You’re welcome. Actually, you don’t need to be so polite for some small gifts!”

Seeing her sickly appearance, Song Yixiao couldn’t help but added, “You are not in a good condition. I hope we don’t bother you and let you feel tired!”

Lady Nuan smiled desolately, “As a Wuhuan woman, I don’t have the good fortune of a lady from Central Plains! After giving birth to a baby, it’s common for a woman to go to work several days later, not to mention miscarriage. I’m able to walk around now, but just too lazy to get up because I feel bored in the house alone!”

“You are in your prime and have ample time, so please relax!” Song Yixiao understood what Lady Nuan meant. She was wished to stay and talk with her. However, although Song Yixiao didn’t treat her as a rival now, she was afraid of being dragged into intrigue in Emperor Xianjia’s harem. Therefore, she pretended not to understand and said politely, “You need to have a rest now. We’ll take our leave!”

Saying that, Song Yixiao pulled Nie Wuying, who was staring at Lady Nuan in a daze, and then turned around and left.

Lady Nuan looked at her, with her lips moving slightly, attempting to detain her but unable to find a reason to do so. Her eyes instantly dimmed.

The peerless beauty’s look of sadness was especially endearing. Song Yixiao noticed it from the corner of her eyes and almost stopped. But still keeping some senses, she made up her mind and walked out. The moment they went out, Nie Wuying transferred her allegiance, “Yixiao, I think Lady Nuan is lonely and looks pitiable. How about going back to accompany her for a while since both of us are not fond of playing with snow?”

“That would be fine if Lady Nuan were well.” Song Yixiao thought to herself that Wuying was too young to understand. It was on the Qianqiu Festival when Lady Nuan miscarried, which had been at most 5 days since then. If it were women from Great Rui, it would just be the time when they started lying-in. Although she was helped, she could get up and walk around. Lady Nuan’s words indicated that women from Wuhuan were strong. How could she be so easy to have a miscarriage with such a strong body?

She was a hundred percent plotted against!

However, until now, not a single word of it had been disclosed from the harem, as if the miscarriage was caused by Lady Nuan’s own bodily infirmity. God knew what Lady Nuan would say if she wanted to talk to them now?

But it was not suitable to say those words now, so Song Yixiao just said, “What she needs most right now is to rest and recuperate, how can we disturb her?”

Song Yixiao lowered her voice and added, “Besides, this is the harem, in case His Majesty happens to come over to visit her…”

After hearing that, Nie Wuying agreed and sighed, “I hope that Lady could get better soon. She’s so beautiful!”

Hearing this, Song Yixiao closed her lips slightly and didn’t say anything: Two of Emperor Xianjia’s nephews had been captured by Wuhuan for several years, and the entire family of Wuhuan’s sovereign were killed by Great Rui. Under such conditions, if she were not beautiful, how could Emperor Xianjia take the former Princess Feinuan into his harem?

The former would surely displease the two grand princesses, and the latter would put himself in danger. Emperor Xianjia was not a faint-hearted ruler who couldn’t move when he saw a beautiful woman, and the reason for this was because Princess Feinuan was so beautiful that it was hard to let go of her.

“But this Lady looks only one or two years older than me. A year or so ago she was a girl of noble birth in Wuhuan, but now she’s not only far from her homeland, but all her relatives have been put to death, and she’s even become a trapped bird in the palace!” Song Yixiao marveled at Lady Nuan’s beauty, but also felt some pity for her, “I don’t know whether her miscarriage was by a secret plot or because she was overly worried.”

When they were thinking, they had returned to where they had left off. However, as they stepped out from behind the tree, a snowball came at their face!

Song Yixiao was taken aback. After she avoided it in a furry, she saw Su Shaomo not far away, who had taken off her fox-fur coat and just wore a brocade robe, bending over intending to continue making snowballs, “Haha, I finally found one!”

Song Yixiao looked around quickly, finding that neither Princess Yushan and others who had been making snowmen, nor the onlookers who had been chatting in twos and threes, were all out of sight.

However, behind the trees and rockeries nearby, there were traces of people hiding in the shadows. Looking at Su Shaomo’s actions, how could Yixiao not know that when she and Nie Wuying left, they threw snowballs instead?

“It’s just as well to meet other people, but who she met was just Miss Shaomo!” Song Yixiao realized that everyone had changed the game and suddenly felt helpless, “If it were Yiren and others, they would just play formally. But this Miss Shaomo is a fun-loving person!”

Normally, Song Yixiao was not an inflexible person. With Princess Yushan in the lead, it was not a big deal to throw away her manners for a while.

But these days, she was afraid of the cold and she couldn’t run, so how could she have a snowball fight?

“Miss Shaomo, please don’t throw snowballs!” After that, Song Yixiao decided to tell Su Shaomo about her situation in private and let her find someone else to play with, so she walked towards Su Shaomo as she spoke, “I have something to tell you!”

She did this because she had no other choices: Although the people who came over to Palace of Lanqiu today were all women, it was still not good to openly yell out such private matters. Therefore, she could only get close to whisper.

Unexpectedly, although she knew that Su Shaomo was rash, she still underestimated her playfulness and rashness!

Su Shaomo blinked at the words and smiled, “Good. Come over here and I’ll hear what you have to say.”

The minute Song Yixiao came up to her, before she could open her mouth, she was hugged by Su Shaomo with lightning speed, and violently pressed down on the snow. Su Shaomo laughed, “Trying to cheat me? No way!”

The defenseless Song Yixiao, “…”

Not far away, Nie Wuying and others, “!”

Nie Wuying had just invited her sister-in-law to accompany her to change her clothes and saw with her own eyes that Jinxun had taken a mugwort packet. As a woman, how could she not know Song Yixiao’s current condition?

Now seeing that her sister-in-law was pinned down in the snow, Nie Wuying’s face darkened! She almost crawled over and pushed Su Shaomo away hard, “Are you crazy? Let go of my sister-in-law!”

Being out of the picture, Su Shaomo was annoyed at such situation, “It’s just a game. Why are you guys so irascible?!”

“I am having a period recently, Miss Shaomo. So if you want to play the game, please find someone else.” Song Yixiao wanted to foam at the mouth but controlled herself, crawling up to sit in the snow, “That’s what I wanted to tell you just now when I came up to you!”

“Why didn’t you say that earlier?” Su Shaomo was stunned for a moment before reacting and knew that she had misunderstood. However, feeling it was mortifying to make amends, she closed lips for a while before saying embarrassedly, “Shall I accompany you back to Palace of Mingguang to change clothes?”

During this short time, the people hiding around found that they had a conflict and rushed to pass the news. Obviously Princess Yushan and Commandery Princess Qingjiang could not sit back and watch when hearing the news. They arrived just at that moment and after knowing what happened, Commandery Princess Qingjiang blamed Su Shaomo for being muddled, “Even if you think that Yixiao is cheating, you don’t have to press her into the snow, right? Did you regard it as a real fight?”

Princess Yushan didn’t want to criticize her “younger sister-in-law-to-be” because of Su Shaoge, so she interrupted, “The most important thing now is to see if Yixiao is hurt.”

Commandery Princess Qingjiang stopped complaining about Su Shaomo when hearing that. She walked around Song Yixiao for a check-up and immediately found that most of her brother-in-law’s clothes was wet with snow. She frowned, “You have to go and change your clothes! Otherwise it’s not good if you get a cold in this freezing cold weather!”

“It’s too far back to Palace of Mingguang. How about using the bathing room at Pavilion of Pinglan first? And we will go to Palace of Mingguang to bring over her change of clothes.” When Princess Yushan was about to speak, the maid behind her said first, “Otherwise Madam Song would not only be uncomfortable in the wet clothes, but also may catch a cold when she walks out of Palace of Lanqiu and then to the side hall of Palace of Mingguang!”

The maid’s advice was not all for Song Yixiao’s health, but mainly for her own protection. It was already against the rules for Princess Yushan to bring them to Palace of Lanqiu to make snowmen today, and it was even more inappropriate to have a snowball fight later on. If the first-rank titled lady were to catch a cold or fall ill afterwards, Princess Yushan would probably be reprimanded at most, but the maids would be made scapegoats. So, what would happen to them then?

Although most of the people present could see what the maid was thinking, her words also spoke to the heart of Commandery Princess Qingjiang, “If the cold was accumulated in women’s body, it will affect her conceiving…”

Although it was common for a man to have several concubines these years, the children that were born of his first wife were more important after all, not to mention that her brother was so close to his wife! What’s more, Jian Xubai’s uncle, Jian Limiao, whose wife had passed away and who had never remarried since then, was an example in the Jian Family. God knew if Jian Xubai would follow him.

It was related to whether her younger brother could have children in the future, so Commandery Princess Qingjiang was unable to consider whether it was against rules for the wife of a duke to use the bathing room of a concubine. Anyway, Neither the Empress Dowager nor Emperor Xianjia and the Empress would care about such a petty thing.

So the decision was immediately made, “The Pavilion of Pinglan is narrow and Lady Nuan is not comfortable now, so if we go there together, I’m afraid we will scare her. In this case, Wuying, you accompany Yixiao over there, and tell her it was my demand to borrow Lady Nuan’s bathing room. I guess she will not refuse!”

Of course, Lady Nuan wouldn’t refuse!

She was still depressed for being unable to keep Song Yixiao, yet the one who had just been gone for a short time was back. Not to mention if there was a demand from Commandery Princess Qingjiang, even if there wasn’t, Song Yixiao would have been warmly welcomed!

After listening to Nie Wuying roughly tell her what had happened, Lady Nuan immediately commanded the maids to make preparation.

A few moments later, the maids prepared the bathing room and came to tell them.

Originally, everything went well. But in the meantime, when the maid who was sent by Commandery Princess Qingjiang sent over the change clothes, she learned that Song Yixiao was taking a bath, and out of consideration, she said, “I just came in from outside where there are wind and snow. I’m afraid I will make Madam Song feel chill if I enter the bathing room now!”

“Qinye, deliver it to Madam Song!” Nie Wuying was about to ask her own maid, Wanxiang, to take the clothes when she heard that, but before she could say anything, Lady Nuan had already instructed one of her maids. Nie Wuying didn’t think much and just said a few grateful words because of disturbing.

When Song Yixiao heard Qinye knocking at the door, she remembered to grab her long hair to cover her arms. But she only considered avoiding being seen by Qinye when she was at the door. She didn’t expect that Jinxun’s hands were wet when she was serving her to bathe, and Jinxun asked Qinye to bring in the clothes.

After she took them in, she put down the clothes plate and turned around to salute and leave. When she raised her head, she saw a red spot beside Song Yixiao’s long black hair, like fire and blood, being thunder-and-lightning.

How could the one in the palace not know Shougong Sand?

Qinye was so shocked that she was almost ill-mannered on the spot and quickly bowed her head to hide her expression.