Chapter 72: Noble Consort Du and the Empress

Once Li Wen left, everyone turned their gazes towards Ning Shu. Ning Shu could sense keenly that their gazes contained envy, jealousy, and a few even contained extreme hate.

Ning Shu looked over and saw a woman dressed in night haze violet silk cloud vestige palace garments. Her expression was haughty and stern, and her eyes contained irrepressible jealousy and loathing.

Ning Shu thought for a moment, then smirked at that woman. She was Noble Consort Du. The resentment between Noble Consort Du and the original host had actually started due to the Empress. In the original host’s heart, she had only one sister-in-law and that was the Empress. She always felt contempt towards all the other women.

Meanwhile, the Empress and Noble Consort Du were quite evenly match in power. However, due to the original host, the Empress managed to move into the advantage. That was why Noble Consort Du had never had any good feelings towards Princess Jiahui. The only reason she came to Orchid Garden Palace was because all the other consorts were going and she wouldn’t be able to explain herself if she didn’t go.

She did this only for Li Wen to see. Li Wen currently loved this younger sister very much. Even if she wanted to make small moves, in front of the Emperor they all still had to act harmonious.

Ning Shu couldn’t help but massage her forehead, feeling a headache. Speaking of which, the original host was a daughter that had yet to get married. Was it really a good idea to meddle with her older brother’s back courtyard affairs? Not only did the original host get involved in palace battles, she also got involved in residence battles. Staying out of everything was the best choice.

The incident in which the original host got married off was also partially due to Noble Consort Du’s encouragement.

To put it plainly, the original host was mostly an idiot in regards to human relationships. A part of it was also due to the fact that she felt it beneath her dignity to try and cultivate relationships.

The original host couldn’t be said to be a bad person – her thoughts were quite pure – but her personality was too arrogant. She was simply too conceited.

“Is Noble Consort Du glaring this way because Imperial Older Brother spoke to this princess but did not speak to you? Is that why you’re so conspicuously angry?” Ning Shu spoke bluntly.

>Ning Shu uses ‘ben gong’ with the consorts, which translates to “I, of the palace.” This term is typically used by an empress or high-ranking consort when speaking to a person of lower status. I’m using ‘this princess’ to avoid using pinyin or that mouthful of ‘this one, of the palace.’ (When I was editing, I was enlightened by this article) I’m also using the royal ‘we’ for the Emperor, btw if you haven’t noticed.

Noble Consort Du: …

Noble Consort Du’s expression seemed to freeze. This blockhead seriously said whatever came to mind. In the palace, a person had to pay careful attention to every single sentence since it contained countless curves, hence Noble Consort Du wasn’t the only one unused to such straightforward speech, this entire nestful of people weren’t used to it.

All of their expressions turned embarrassed and one by one they excused themselves. The words earlier were probably too frank, frank to the point they all felt awkward.

Ning Shu watched as Noble Consort Du left angrily and smiled. There was no way to fix the relationship between them. Since that was the case, it’d be better to just tear off the mask of cordiality so that it would make these people hesitant to make a move.

Ning Shu thought for a while, then decided to go pay a visit to the Empress, this sister-in-law of hers. The original host would usually tell this sister-in-law everything so their relationship still counted as pretty good.

However, how could there be any true friendship in the Inner Palace?

Much less between a person’s wife and the person’s younger sister?

Ning Shu headed to the Phoenix Waters Palace. When she walked into the palace, she saw the Empress sitting on a serpentine gems-decorated fragrant rosewood couch with a four-section primrose-colored cedar screen that was interwoven with glass behind her.

>Primrose is a yellow, I didn’t know that.

When the Empress saw Ning Shu, she hastily stood up and walked towards Ning Shu. Ning Shu curstied towards her. “My respects, Imperial Sister-in-law.”

The Empress hastily stopped Ning Shu. Taking her hand, she revealed a warm smile. “You look wonderful! Jiahui, child, you seriously gave Sister-in-law such a fright. Your Imperial Older Brother even worriedly exhorted for me to look after you.”

“Thank you, Imperial Sister-in-law, Jiahui is almost all better,” said Ning Shu.

#comment: “night haze violet silk cloud vestige palace garments” If there was a voiceover, I’d have the person reading take a big breath, then pronounce all of this in one breath. The reason for these long names is because, most authors of historical chinese novels have two main options: Come up with descriptions for the character’s apparel, aka describe what they have in their hair, the layers and colors of clothing they have, bracelets, waist ornaments, and accessories, or just take one of the available style names and insert. In addition, near the end of this chapter I found out that furniture had set names too. *sigh* I’ve yet to find a translated list.

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