Chapter 28 (1/2)

Chapter 28

The 26th Day of the 1st Month of Tian Yong's 10th Year,

The Xun Emperor, Xuan Yuan Yu sets up a farewell banquet for Ye Emperor, Bai Li Nan.  Other than the ministers of Xun Kingdom, the envoys of Ye Kingdom will also partic.i.p.ate in the banquet.

Xi Yan will be attending it with Xuan Yuan Yu.  Her ceremonial outfit is in the color of snow with silver patterns of Xi Yan flowers embroidered on it.  She did not use that Xi Yan flower hairpin though; she vaguely knows what that hairpin implies.  She will never use that hairpin again.

She considers that hairpin Mu Yan's last gift for her, and yet because of that person, the hairpin ends up giving her a different feeling.

She had no idea what that hairpin meant back then; and that leads to this messy situation right now.

Thinking of that, she simply smiles.  This smile of hers is vague.  Her hair is set on the Xian Jiu hairstyle, underneath that high bun, her face looks the same as before she enters the palace.  Even though she suffers from the cold, the only apparent difference is her chin that has gotten slightly pointier.

Even though she looks the same, she knows that she will never be able to go back to the happy and unfettered time of when she was still in Nalan manor.  The naïve and easy going Nalan Xi Yan can no longer return.

Putting on a veil of the same color as her dress, she gets up and boards her palanquin before heading towards Feng Yi Lin Water Bank.

Just as she reaches the water bank, Xuan Yuan Yu's palanquin arrives as well.  She steps down from her palanquin and curtsey at his direction.  As that yellow silhouette appears at the corner of her eyes, a new kind of scent hits her nose.  Li Qiu once said that this scene is called Long Xian Fragrance, they are only used by the emperor.  Not just fragrance, a lot of things exclusively belongs to him, including the harem.  If we add the fourteen new Meirens, the numbers of concubines in the palace are now 38.

For someone who has reigned for ten years, 38 concubines aren't a lot of number.   The biggest contributing factor to that small number is even though they will add more concubines each more, more dies.  Very few lives past two years, even fewer lives past 5 years.  Only two of them makes through the ten years of reign.

One of the two is Zhou Zhaoyi, the only concubine who has given birth to a princess.  The other one is Guan Cairen who has been banished to the cold palace.