Chapter 201 - A Visit to Mother (1)
Chapter 201: A Visit to Mother (1)
Translator: Antonia
On the other side, master Mo was summoned secretly by the Emperor.
The identity of the Mo family’s most didn’t qualify him to meet the Emperor, so naturally master Mo was extremely nervous.
When he arrived, the Emperor was flicking over memorials at the broad rosewood desk in the study. Hearing the notice, he didn’t move his head and said, “Let him come in.”
Everything in the study was of top quality. The twenty-four-door rosewood screen was inserted with a good jade in the middle and carved with landscape.
Master Mo bypassed the screen, collected himself and then kneeled to the Emperor as his greeting.
Only after that did the Emperor looked up from his memorials but didn’t let him get up. The chief eunuch understood it and let all the servants in the study out.
…
After master Mo left, the Emperor exuded a fury.
He clenched tightly with his fingers the pure gold arm of his chair, eyes staring into out of the door like a sword.
The chief eunuch knew that the Emperor was already murderous. Hadn’t it been that the person was still useful, he would have already picked up a sword and split him into two pieces in person.
The Emperor was in a bad mood in the past few days. A low-level master didn’t offer him what he wanted of his own accord to please the Emperor but dared to ask for grant. He must be sick of living.
**
Time rushed by like water. It had been a week since she came back from the imperial palace.
It was May. The temperature was on the rise and she felt a little warm.
Mo Qianxue came to the training field early in the morning to practice what Su Qi had taught her. Now she had a person to practice with. When she was ready, Yuxuan exchanged blows with her.
Yuxuan really appreciated this set of swordsmanship.
She was clever and practiced first-class internal strength, while Yuxuan was a good couch-mate who was strict in that as long as they started, she no longer treated Mo Qianxue as her superior. Hence, after a few days, Mo Qianxue could react times quicker and made rapid progress.
Every time the practice finished, nanny Mo immediately walked to her, took over the sword from her, handed her the handkerchief she prepared, and then presented her with a plate of refreshment from Chuyi, saying lovingly, “You must be hungry after an hour’s practice. Eat a cake first. We’ll have breakfast after getting back and washing…”
Before the morning training, Mo Qianxue only asked them to boil eggs, ate a few egg white and drank a little honey water.
“Nanny, I told you many times. Don’t just let me eat after I finish…” Mo Qianxue was speechless.
Eating too much before and after exercise was bad for the stomach. Mo Qianxue knew it well.
The morning and night is the best time to absorb protein. When waking up in the morning, the body’s energy is consumed after a night’s sleep, so it is easier for the body to absorb and digest protein, and a few eggs are enough to timely supplement nutrients for exercise.
But unfortunately, nanny Mo didn’t understand this.
She only felt that her lady ate too little in the morning and feared she might be hungry. Therefore, whenever there was a break in the practice, she came up with various snacks, no matter how many times Mo Qianxue had refused to eat.
Her gaze was so eager that Mo Qianxue feared that she would simply tuck a cake into her mouth.
Seeing Mo Qianxue only wiped the sweat without taking a glance at the refreshment, nanny Mo worried and pretended to care about Yuxuan, “I guess Yuxuan is tired too. Why not go to take a rest? Chiyi, Shiwu and I will be here and serve lady.”
She said so because she feared after Mo Qianxue wiped her sweat, Yuxuan would, in her cold face, encourage lady to practice more.
Lady was a nobility and had guards to protect her. She didn’t need to be a martial artist. Why to practice that much?
Seeing Yuxuan stood still, nanny Mo couldn’t do anything with it. Although she was her nanny, she could only command over the servant girls in the mansion. Yuxuan wasn’t a servant, and even butler Mo respected her and called her guard Yu.
Yuxuan only listened to the order of lady and was indifferent to others, pulling a cold face exactly the same as Ghost.
Yuxuan ignored nanny Mo’s words. Mo Qianxue was making progress every day and right at a critical stage. She wiped out the sweat, took over the sword from nanny Mo, gave a look to Yuxuan and then jumped onto the field in the middle.
Nanny Mo hurriedly tried to stop her, advised earnestly, “Lady, it’s best not to practice more today. After breakfast, you’ll need to visit Mrs. Jia… It’s arranged days ago and the letter was sent alright. It’s not proper to be late…”
Reminded by nanny Mo, Mo Qianxue realized that today she had an appointment with Mrs. Jia. In a hurry, she threw the sword to nanny Mo and walked to her room, “Skip breakfast. Help me dress after bathing. I’ll go to the Jia mansion directly.”
She should have visited Mrs. Jia after she got out of the imperial palace. But the ancients had more etiquettes, and it was improper to visit others after just getting out of the jail. Hence, she made an appointment with Mrs. Jia and set the date on seven days later.
Mo Qianxue walked fast in the front, while nanny Mo followed and nagged, “I think, lady, you’d better not to practice sword recently. Today, you have to visit Mrs. Jia. Tomorrow afternoon, you will hang out with Junzhu Susu…”
“A few days later, it’ll be Dragon Boat Festival. You’ve promised the Lan lady to hang out and appreciate flowers in her garden…”
“We need to make more clothes. You can’t always wear those light-blue plain ones. Even if you can’t wear in colors as bright as red, it’d be better to be a little grander…”
“Right, Mr. Jia invited you to make a lecture on poetry in the Academy…”
In the Jia mansion.
The Jia mansion attached great importance to Mo Qianxue’s visit today, not just because she was the acquired daughter, but only due to her new identity as the fiancé of a master of a super family.
The Emperor had given his consent on the marriage. As soon as Mo Qianxue held her fifteen-year-old ritual in the middle of this month, the Ning family would send the official letter, and then the marriage was completely settled.
Mo Qianxue bathed, changed clothes and set off. When her carriage arrived at the gate of the Jia mansion and Awu went to knock the gate, it was already at noon.
Mo Qianxue dressed up luxuriously today. The inky hair was combed and stacked into a butterfly shape, in which were many gold-and-jade hairpins in the shape of begonia. The dress was still blue, but the exquisite lake blue.
Before going out, Chuyi and nanny Mo helped make her hair together. Shiwu, Zhizhu, Zhihe helped her get changed, putting in much more effort than when she went to the peach blossom party.
According to nanny Mo, she was different now. She was no longer merely a lady of the Founder mansion, she was also the fiancé of a super master.
Besides, the first seven-day-mourning period had passed. Even though she still couldn’t dressed up in ostentatious colors, she couldn’t be too plain either so that some would look down upon her.
In addition, this was her first visit to her acquired mother. Wearing plain clothes would impress people as disrespectful…
Mo Qianxue thought about it and agreed.
Surely, she shouldn’t be too plain in her first visit as a daughter.
Moreover, even if unwilling, she had to consider about Ning Shaoqing’s face. Last time, it was exactly because of her plain look that Wengzhu Aiyuan came up to disgust her.
The tailor makes the man. Sometimes, luxurious clothes would ward off a lot of troubles.
Looking in the mirror, she saw an extravagantly-dressed girl that she almost couldn’t recognize. She was reminded of a poem describing how meticulously a girl could be dressed up, “She wears a long skirt with wide sleeves, silky clouds-shaped hair with best jade accessories. Gold flower bracelets are on her snowy wrists, and her feet are in pearl shoes…”
She had never been so dressed up and asked tentatively, “I guess it’s enough…”
Nanny Mo looked around and pointed at her ears, as if having found some huge mistake, “No. The earrings don’t go with the entire look.”
Before Mo Qianxue understood, Chuyi and Shiwu took off her earrings on both ears.
Nanny Mo flipped through the jewelry box for a while, took out a pair of heavy jade earbobs, and put on for her. Mo Qianxue sighed at once and continued the poem, “Jade on her ears…”
After Awu knocked the gate and let known their arrival, there Mrs. Jia, taking her daughter-in-law and three daughters of concubines who had been waiting long, came out to welcome her.
Meeting Mrs. Jia, Mo Qianxue smiled joyfully and curtsied, “Mother, it’s good to see you.”
In the eye of Mrs. Jia, Mo Qianxue looked both ceremonious and graceful, matching her identiy well. At once, there was satisfaction in her eyes. She stepped forward and naturally held her hands, leading her to get in.
The other women behind Mrs. Jia were firstly amazed by Mo Qianxue’s beauty and then displayed respect. Mo Qianxue saw all of their expressions and smiled. Nanny Mo was right. Outer appearance represented something in its own right.
Getting the news of Mo Qianxue’s visit, the whole family showed up. In this age, the rule on the separation between men and women wasn’t that strict.
The garden in the mansion wasn’t dwelled with all sorts of flowers, and there were desks and couches placed randomly in the pavilions and towers. But all displayed certain aesthetic principle.
At a glance, it gave out the an austere but exquisite air of a scholar’s family.
By the time when she got to the main hall, Mrs. Jia had introduced to her everyone behind her.
The Jia mansion didn’t have much people. There were only two legal sons. The eldest lord Jia was also an academician in the Academy like his father.
The academicians in the Academy were also officials, ranking from the ninth to the third level.
The second lord Jia was a sixth-level vice minister in the Ministry of Rites.
Behind him, in an apricot color dress was Jiang, the eldest lady Jia, behind whom was Yao, the second lady Jia.
Mr. Jia had two concubines, aunt Zhang and aunt Li, who, altogether, gave birth to three children of Mr. Jia.
Judging from the look and countenance of the concubines and their daughters, Mo Qianxue could tell that Mrs. Jia treated them nicely.