Queen's Road in the Red House

In autumn, the sky is high and far away, and the landscape of the imperial garden is more and more clear, and the flowers and trees are sparse.

Daiyu went for a walk by the pool again, when she suddenly heard a ringing laughter.

After a few more steps, there is a small path in Xitong, winding around the pond. There are ancient pines planted beside the road. It is said that it was there when the imperial city was first built in the previous dynasty. Even the stones next to it are ancient relics hundreds of years old.

The two children were playing and joking around the pine tree. It was the sixth prince and the third princess, and the nobleman Bai was standing and watching with a smile.

It was the sixth prince who discovered Daiyu first, and happily called out: "Fourth sister-in-law."

Only then did Bai Guiren wake up, and he pulled the three princesses together: "I have seen the crown princess."

Although Bai Guiren's status is low, she is also a concubine who gave birth to a princess, so Daiyu said politely: "Mother Bai."

She used to live with Empress Yang wholeheartedly, but now that the Empress has retired, she inevitably lost her support and became more careful.

Fortunately, Concubine Zhuang and the others didn't care about her, and treated her like air, although they didn't take care of her, they never made things difficult for her.

Daiyu bent down and touched the Sixth Prince's hair, and saw that his short hair was braided into delicate braids all around, and finally he braided a big braid on the top of his heart, with a small pagoda-shaped red ribbon on the braid. The lovely gold pendant horns show the care of the braider.

Looking at his pale complexion, his eyes are black and white, clear and pure, and no longer shy and fearful, Daiyu knew that he was doing well.

Only by treating them well can we raise such a lively and agile child.

Speaking of bringing Daiyu into the palace and being involved in many things, I have seen more concubines above the rank of concubine, and I have not seen much of the rest.

And the princes and princesses also died in the imperial hospital because of Queen Yang's accident, and were closely watched by their mothers and concubines in the palace.

Daiyu only saw the sixth prince from a distance a few times in various public places, and saw him being guided by the wet nurse to salute in a proper manner.

Although I was worried about it, it was not easy to send someone to give extra things, as if I couldn't trust Mrs. Bai, the adoptive mother.

It happened to happen today, so Daiyu took a closer look at the sixth prince, and saw that except for the dirty cuffs when he was playing just now, the rest of the clothes on his whole body were clean and tidy, with fine stitches, so he knew that the new wet nurse was taking good care of him.

The sixth prince was also happy to see Daiyu.

He untied a pouch from his body, and pulled out two pendants the size of little fingers tied by a red thread.One is an orange carved from topaz, and the other is a lychee carved from watermelon tourmaline.

"To the fourth sister-in-law, these two are the fourth brother and the fourth sister-in-law."

The third princess watched from the side, and said in a childlike voice, "The fourth brother is Chengzi because of his name, so why is the fourth sister-in-law a litchi?"

Although the sixth prince was older, his reaction was still slower than that of the third princess. After careful consideration, he slowly shook his head: "This is a secret, I promised the fourth brother."

The third princess pouted: "The fourth brother loves me too, I'll ask him!"

Bai Guiren quickly came up to coax them, and then said to the two of them: "I'm going to call you Prince and Princess."

The sixth prince liked Daiyu originally, and the third princess got close to Xin Hongcheng. Seeing Daiyu laughing at Yanyan, she refused to admit her birth. The two insisted on pulling Daiyu to take her to see the lilac parrot raised in Baiguiren's palace. .

Bai Guiren was uneasy, hesitant to speak and followed behind.

There are not many concubines in the emperor's palace, and the empresses in the east and west palaces are not fully occupied. Bai Guiren now lives in the Mingxiu Palace by herself. Since she is not the master, she only lives in the east side hall.

When the palace people saw the arrival of the Crown Princess, they hurriedly went to prepare the best tea and snacks in the palace.

Daiyu took a sip of tea and knew that it was the new tea of ​​this year. Bye bye, the curtains, beds, screens and windows in the palace were also replaced with new ones according to the seasons. At least the Xindao Household Department did not neglect Mingxiu Palace.

Bai Guiren has been able to please Queen Yang for a long time, and he is also good at talking.

"Since the Crown Princess has been in charge, things from the House of Internal Affairs have been delivered in a good way." Her brows and eyes are gentle, and her smile makes people feel comfortable: "Besides, I heard that some maids are going to be released from the palace. It's a good thing. What's more, the palaces don't need so many people. Even as a nobleman, I feel that there are too many people. Sometimes the little palace ladies have nothing to do after noon. You might as well let it out."

The nobleman's role is certain, and he must manage the food and drink of the people in the palace.

With more people, the food will naturally be distributed evenly.Either you ate mine, or I ate someone else's, and it never stopped.

Daiyu saw that nobleman Bai did not exceed his duty in dressing up as a nobleman, and he was wearing jewelry that was worn according to his position during the New Year's Day of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which showed that he was very cautious.

But looking at it a little more closely, it is also strange.

For the nobleman, there are four sets of headgear a year, no emerald emerald, no tassels, no red treasures, no bright pearls.All in all, it is generally plain gold jewelry, or some ordinary gemstones or rice beads.

Of course, if the emperor specially rewards it, it is naturally not within these restrictions.

There are so many frames, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs can't give people repeated jewelry, so naturally they can only work harder on the patterns.

Daiyu has been paying attention to Mr. Ge recently, so she knows a little about the reputation that Shangshi has built in the past two years.

For example, in the first lunar month, all the nobles received a set of golden head noodles with longevity patterns, and for the emperor’s Halloween, a set of gold jewelry inlaid with garnet and carnelian. On the Double Ninth Festival that just passed, the concubines of the six palaces were all in the shape of chrysanthemums. The head face is only divided into respect and inferiority from the variety, size and materials of chrysanthemums.

The imperial concubine also said yesterday that this year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs worked hard to make the golden leaves delicate and dexterous, like a real chrysanthemum, even the stamens are made out.

Not long after the Double Ninth Festival, Bai Guiren still wore a chrysanthemum bracelet on his hand, and two small chrysanthemums on his ears, but the hairpin and other things on his head were replaced by the flat and square hairpin with the pattern of longevity. , which looks rather uncoordinated.

"Does Concubine Bai not like hairpins with chrysanthemum patterns?"

For some reason, Bai Guiren seemed very nervous, and he stumbled and said: "I like it, and I like it too. It's just that it's a little loose. Yes, the twisted thread of the stamen is loose. I sent it back to Shangzhu to mend it."

Daiyu couldn't be more surprised when she saw Bai Guiren's close maid suddenly knelt down and said, "I beg the Crown Princess to be the master for our nobleman!"

Bai Guiren got up suddenly, and even knocked over the tea in a hurry: "Magpie, what nonsense are you talking about! The Crown Princess dares to be rude in front of you, so hurry up and get out!"

Suddenly, when something happened suddenly, Xiao Luo reacted the fastest, and immediately let the somewhat sluggish wet nurses take the sixth prince and the third princess out.The third princess seemed to be frightened. As soon as she left the door, the crying sounded, and Xiao Luo went to coax her to play with the nurse.

The palace maid had already burst into tears, she kowtowed several times to Daiyu and said: "If I have a lie, I would like to go to the Punishment Division immediately!"

Daiyu sat up straight and said, "Say it."

But the court lady got up and ran to the inner room, and took out a pair of hairpins and a golden hair comb, both of which were in the pattern of chrysanthemum patterns.

"Back to the Crown Princess, the Decoration Department of the House of Internal Affairs is watching people order dishes. In the past two or three years, only half of the red gold hair noodles given to our empress are real gold, and the rest are mixed with copper or tin. You can't take two or three. The sky is about to show its traces.

At first we also went to Shang Jewelry to look for it, but Master Ge actually bit back, saying that our mother was poor, so she asked someone to take out the jewelry from the palace and sell it for money!They also pointed out two or three eunuchs as testimonies, all of whom gave our palace honors in the past, but they also bit our nobleman, saying that the nobleman repeatedly begged them to send things out to sell. "

The palace maid cried: "The nobleman is a little short of money, and sometimes he would send his own embroidery to exchange for money, but the little masters and palace maids who have a hard time in the palace do this all the time, so Mr. Ge took hold of him." , Every word and every word bites our nobleman."

"We nobles are timid and afraid of getting into trouble. We are afraid that we will lose face in front of the empress and impede the future of the three princesses, so we bear it all."

Seeing the tears in Bai Guiren's eyes, Daiyu wiped them and cried: "You have always been impatient, today you are really going to kill me." She couldn't help frowning: "Mother Bai, you are so afraid of a principal, but you still Is there any other reason?"

The maid kowtowed again and said: "Princess Concubine, Mrs. Ge must not only bully our Mingxiu Palace, there was a promise in the past that made trouble.

According to her status, she naturally can't use red gold, it's a gilt head, but the decorations are all made of gold powder and silver powder coated iron, and it's all rusted the first time she touched it with water.She reported the matter to the former empress empress, who was also furious and punished Shang Shi.It's just that Mr. Ge pushed out two young eunuchs to be tortured, but he himself was only fined a few months of monthly money. "

After all, he is the leader of the promise, and it is impossible to kill Mr. Ge directly. At most, he is the responsibility of lax supervision.

"Unexpectedly, Mr. Ge has contacts everywhere. When winter came, the pasted paper window in the promised house only looked good, but it broke within two days. It was only a delay to report to the Ministry of Internal Affairs; Her charcoal couldn't be lit for some reason, and she fell ill from the cold. Because she couldn't keep up with the cost of food and clothing, she had a fever, and she died within a few days. Since then, our nobles have been scared to death If you have the guts, don't dare to report on Mr. Ge's thoughts again."

When Daiyu heard this, her face was as cold as frost.

Unexpectedly, Master Ge's ability is not only that, he even has to squeeze the wool twice.Not to mention sending fake gold to others, but also forcing Bai Guiren and other low-ranking concubines to give him money back!

Whenever there is a big banquet in the palace, the concubines must naturally wear a complete set of headgear.

Mrs. Bai had no choice but to send her own money to Mr. Ge, and asked the palace servants to humbly beg him to make up a set of golden face for herself so that she could see people.

When the palace lady said this, her chest heaved in anger: "It is obvious that he cheated on our nobleman, but in the end, he actually asked us to pay for it, and he often made some greedy faces, forcing our nobleman to give us the princess's privileges." Give him the bird's nest and other things!"

Bai Guiren can only cry, and now two handkerchiefs are already wet from crying.

Seeing Daiyu's face was cold, she said to Ai Ai: "Princess Concubine, you have pity on me, please don't make trouble. I am a person like Puliu, it doesn't matter how I live. I can live with less on weekdays."

The maid said anxiously: "My lord! In the past, you were fine with only the third princess, but now you have added the sixth prince. You are already at the end of your life, and all your money has been given to Mr. Ge." , you just look at the gold pendant feet on the Sixth Prince’s hairband. They were all made with money from our nobles. The pendant horns sent by Shang Jewelry can be blown up with the wind. They are not gold at all! Our nobles are afraid that others will see them , Said that I treated the sixth prince harshly, ignoring the rules of the prince, so I can only make up for it by knocking out teeth and swallowing blood!"

Bai Guiren lay on the couch and continued to cry.

Being a mother is strong, and in the harem women, it can only be reflected in the strength of endurance.

In order for the third princess to grow up well, even if Bai Guiren eats chaff and swallows vegetables, she can endure being bullied and trampled on.

--

Coming out of Bai Guiren's palace, Mo Ran said softly: "Your Majesty, do you want to go back and investigate this matter carefully?"

Daiyu shook her head: "It's too late. A thief would feel guilty. Today I went to Mingxiu Palace. Although I was dragged away by the sixth prince and the third princess by accident, I would be afraid if I fell into the eyes of a thief. I went back to investigate for two days, and the evidence was gone.”

Mo Ran nodded: "That palace lady is smart. Seeing that the empress has gone in person, she simply broke the boat and wanted to fight for Bai Guiren." There was also disgust in her eyes: "Speaking of it, Mr. Ge is greedy, not to mention confiscating the status of the palace concubine, but even paying for it." Ask for money!"

Daiyu sneered: "Let's keep it secret, no wonder I can't find anything wrong with the account!" She stopped on her way back to Chonghua Palace: "Directly ask people to go to Haoshang Decoration Department, and no one is allowed to walk around."

Mo Ran was taken aback: "Your Majesty, after all, Concubine Zhen Gui's person is also in charge. There is no conclusive evidence. We will be guarded by others, and I am afraid that we will lose ground."

Although Mrs. Bai has a few low-quality hairpins in her hands, it is not hard evidence. Mr. Ge only needs to insist that Mrs. Bai sold them herself - after all, when the Ministry of Internal Affairs sends things to the palaces for handover, the palaces They are all sealed with a seal, and they are accepted only after confirming that the things are correct.

Just like express delivery, if you don't open it for inspection in person, you can only be responsible if something happens later.

Daiyu changed direction: "Let's go to Li Guiren again." The fifth prince's biological mother, Li Guiren, was also a big family member who was blackmailed by Mr. Ge.

Seeing that she acted resolutely, Mo Ran had no choice but to grit his teeth and order, and even personally brought someone to watch the door at Shangzhu's office.They are not allowed to get away with one person.

So much so that Master Ge was anxious to hang himself, but he couldn't find a chance to send a message to Concubine Zhen Gui.

Daiyu knew that time was money in this matter, so she took Xiaoluo to stop in each palace and took away the most evidence with the least amount of nonsense.

Before dinner, all the evidence was presented to the Empress Dowager.

The Queen Mother didn't even move her eyebrows, and said directly: "According to the palace rules."

That is deprivation of office, fifty rods, and then thrown into the Department of Punishment to do hard labor.

Daiyu agreed.

The Empress Dowager said: "The slave oppressed the master. The last time I was Xiao Liu's nanny. It can be seen that the punishment is not severe enough to deter the slave. If so, this time the stick punishment, let everyone in the House of Internal Affairs come and watch!"

Although the Empress Dowager's expression remained unchanged, Daiyu knew she was annoyed.

Because the old man personally divided the cane punishment into three time periods, so that the staff of the Ministry of Internal Affairs could arrange shifts and divide it into three groups of people to watch.Guaranteed not to delay their own work, but also to see the harsh torture and cruel laws.

As soon as this incident happened, the atmosphere of the Ministry of Internal Affairs immediately changed.

The chief eunuchs who had been friends with Chief Ge in the past, all behaved like avoiding cats and mice with their tails between their tails, for fear of showing a little braid.

Three days later, Daiyu finally received an invitation from Concubine Zhen Gui to drink tea.