flstandardbreds Chapter 426 2 Marrying a Concubine
Chapter 426 2 Marrying a Concubine
"Even so, there are still many women who look down on women. The Queen is indeed a role model among women." Following a resounding voice, the Queen came over with Princess Wan Ning.
The emperor did not request a grand banquet, although it was just a small banquet, Gu Jianchu still invited everyone he should invite. In addition to a few princesses, the rest were second-rank officials in the court and their wives.
Mrs. Pingxibo and others followed the elder sister and echoed a few words.
It's not that they are flattering, but they are truly grateful to the Queen. If the Queen hadn't intervened, this would have been a mess. Even if they could get a divorce, they would not get any benefits by bargaining with such a shameless family as the Shangshu Mansion.
After the prime minister took his seat, the wives of other high-ranking officials arrived late.
Mrs. Kong from the Minister of Personnel's Mansion could have come. I heard that the invitation had been sent, but because of the matter between them and the Pingxi Marquis' Mansion, they were reprimanded by the Emperor, and the invitation sent by the Empress was instantly withdrawn within an hour. Originally, they were skeptical about such things, but now that they saw Mrs. Kong from the Pingxi Marquis' Mansion here, they could not help but believe it.
Everyone exchanged glances, knowing what was going on.
However, no one took the initiative to mention it in front of the Queen.
"Your Majesty, do you still remember the girl from the family of the Left Vice Minister of Works? That girl was once named Lady Li and left the palace with me some time ago." Wen Nuan brought up the matter directly in front of everyone.
The Empress invited her only out of past friendship. Otherwise, as a poor marquis's family, they would never have been able to sneak into such a palace banquet, let alone have the opportunity to speak to the Empress alone.
That's why she had no manners to bring up this matter in such an occasion.
The reason why Gu Jianchu invited Wen Nuan was indeed out of the sisterly affection in the past. In addition, she also wanted to know how the sisters who had left the palace were doing now. After experiencing what happened to Zhang Ran, Gu Jianchu couldn't help but remember to care about those poor sisters.
Before this, she had specially sent someone to pass a message to Wen Nuan, asking her to pay more attention to those sisters.
When other people heard these words, they all looked at Wen Nuan strangely.
I even laughed at it in my heart.
I don't know how this girl became the emperor's concubine. She has no sense of propriety at all. The emperor has already dismissed all the concubines from the palace for the sake of the empress, but this girl actually mentioned them in front of the empress openly. This is just to make the empress unhappy.
However, when they thought about how the Queen had stood up for the two concubines who had left the palace at Wanguo Temple and Changjie, they couldn't help but feel that they were overthinking it, and perhaps they were too narrow-minded.
Even though they thought so, everyone still paid close attention to Gu Jianchu's expression.
The emperor had neither too many nor too few women in his harem at that time. It was half the number of the previous emperor, but there were still dozens of them. Except for those concubines like the virtuous concubine and the noble concubine who were seeking death and were directly banished to the cold palace or sent to a nunnery, there were still dozens of concubines in the palace. Compared with those who sided with the virtuous concubine and the noble concubine, they were relatively low-key in the palace and even had little sense of existence in the palace.
Gu Jianchu didn't like having everyone come to pay their respects to her every day. Even if they came to pay their respects every now and then, they would hide in the corner in a low-key manner, making it difficult for people to notice them.
Gu Jianchu naturally had no impression of it.
More than twenty concubines were released from the palace that day.
Gu Jianchu frowned slightly, thought about it carefully and said, "I have some impression."
Seeing that Gu Jianchu didn't look very good, the ladies' hearts instantly rose to their throats, and they also broke out in a cold sweat for Wen Nuan.
This girl really brings up things that are not related to the topic.
There are so many things to say, but why talk about those who were dismissed from the palace? Even someone like the queen who cares about all the women in the world can't help but feel jealous when facing her husband. After all, all women in the world are like this.
Gu Jianchu took a sip of the hot drink at hand, then looked at Wen Nuan, "I remember that Miss Li is only seventeen years old this year. When she entered the palace, she was just a fifteen-year-old child. How is she doing now after leaving the palace?"
Gu Jianchu believed that Wen Nuan would not bring up this matter for no reason.
Unless they don't have a good life outside the palace.
If they were living well, Wen Nuan probably wouldn't mention it in front of her, and would treat their past as a mirage, disappearing as they lived happily.
Only when life is not going well will people keep bringing up old relationships.
Hearing this, everyone looked at Gu Jianchu with scrutiny.
Is the queen pretending to be magnanimous, or is she really so magnanimous that she doesn't care about these things?
But it's also true that those women have now left the palace and pose no threat to the queen.
Wen Nuan didn't think much about what those ladies were thinking. She looked at Gu Jianchu with sorrow in her eyes. "When Miss Li was ten years old, her parents were on their way back to their hometown to worship their ancestors when they were caught in a mudslide. They both died on the spot. Miss Li was lucky. She was left at home because she had a serious illness at the time. Since then, she has lived with her second uncle's family."
Gu Jianchu immediately understood Wen Nuan's intention in bringing up these old things.
Like Zhang Ran, even her own parents don’t love her, let alone her uncle and aunt.
Mrs. Zhou, the wife of the Minister of the Central Secretariat, said, "I do remember this incident. That mudslide not only killed the Li couple, but also many others. The refugees fled directly to the capital."
Gu Jianchu took the hot pumpkin drink at hand and put it into his mouth with a small spoon. His cold eyes swept over Wen Nuan, motioning her to continue.
"How can this uncle and aunt compare to my own parents? Although they didn't treat Miss Li too harshly, good things didn't happen to her. At that time, seeing so many people filling the harem, Lord Li and Madam Li couldn't bear to part with their daughter, so they sent Miss Li, who was only fifteen years old, into the palace. Now that Miss Li has left the palace and returned home, the uncle and aunt feel that Miss Li is eating free meals at home and will delay their daughters' marriage. Even though it was the emperor's decree to send her out of the palace, she is still an abandoned woman, which they feel is unlucky, so they hurriedly found a family to marry Miss Li off."
"If it were a servant girl from an ordinary family, I wouldn't have mentioned it to the Empress, but they found a concubine for Miss Li from a merchant family. For a daughter of an official, even if it's her second marriage, marrying into a merchant family's main wife is already marrying down, so how can she become someone else's concubine?"
"But I heard that she has already received the betrothal gift, a total of more than 100,000 taels, and she will be getting married next month." Wen Nuan finished her words in one breath.
Everyone originally thought that Wen Nuan was just bringing up something that was irrelevant and was trying to upset the Queen, but they didn't expect it to be such a big melon. Considering the matter with Zhang Ran, it's no wonder that Wen Nuan brought it up in front of the Queen.