At first, the sound only came from afar.

Ai Cao didn't hear clearly; she assumed that others were talking in the street and that she was eavesdropping in the house.

But after listening for a while, she realized something was wrong. It was neither the Lantern Festival nor the New Year, and there was a curfew. Who would be walking on the streets at this hour?

When she listened again, she saw a thin layer of white smoke rising into the room.

Ai Cao pulled the blanket over her mouth and nose and lowered her body.

The system said, "I just analyzed it. This cigarette is only for helping people sleep and has no other side effects. And it's probably because they're afraid of using too much and harming people; this amount isn't even enough to make a cat fall asleep."

Ai Cao relaxed a little, but still stared at the window.

She listened for a while, lowering her breath, before realizing the sound was coming from the second gate. The courtyard between the main gate and the second gate wasn't small, and the wall and gate blocking the second courtyard looked too heavy. Naturally, she was misled into thinking the soundproofing here was good.

Soundproofing is a minor issue, Ai Cao thought. The bigger problem is that the homeowner clearly said there were miscellaneous items stored in the second courtyard, so why could those items still clearly speak and be heard by her?

If it had stayed near the second gate, it wouldn't have been so bad. But the sound was getting closer and closer, as if it were only separated by a courtyard wall.

The door opened slowly with a soft creak.

Two figures, along with many more distant and blurred images, were projected onto the window.

“Those two have already gone to sleep.” The same voice that Ai Cao had heard before, the same one that the homeowner they had met during the day, rang out. “I asked, and the Song family does indeed have a daughter of this age.”

The homeowner's kind, always smiling face flashed through Ai Cao's mind.

Artemisia has never been wary of women. During the day, when discussing the rental with the landlord, she only stood behind Songtang to keep an eye on Songtang's safety and didn't pay much attention to the landlord.

She had only thought of the homeowner as an ordinary middle-aged woman. But now it seemed that she had stayed too far away from the power struggles for some time and had been playing house with Song Tang.

“If something happens, I can’t protect you either. Let’s not even talk about the fact that you’ve only rented out the front yard…” another person said, “There are still two days until that person’s appointed time, and the guards entering and leaving the capital are tighter than usual. Coming to the capital to seek refuge at this critical juncture?”

She scoffed, "What do you really expect a little girl to do?"

The homeowner's voice was gentle: "Your Highness has never seen the guard beside the young lady of the Song family. That guard is over seven feet tall and is good at hiding. If she hadn't been following the young lady of the Song family so closely, I'm afraid I wouldn't have noticed her either."

She glanced out the window and continued, "And although the girl looked young and a little shy, she was quite sensible. She was articulate when we talked about the rent during the day, and seemed to have been well-mannered."

"And what about the identity of the guard?" the woman asked.

The homeowner said, "It's still unclear. The elders of the Song family, who went back more than ten years, had never heard of this person, and there's no written record. From what they said, we vaguely heard that it was the youngest daughter of the Song family who found it."

“They must have come from outside the northern border,” the woman said. “It’s difficult for people of this height to be born and raised in the southern border.”

"Although this guard is a short-haired woman, she doesn't control the young lady of the Song family; on the contrary, she is the one who leads them," the homeowner said. "The young lady of the Song family comes from the south. If this guard had something on her mind, why would she bother to come and work so hard by the young lady's side?"

They all fell silent.

"And why did you rent out your front yard to them?" the woman asked.

“I couldn’t bear to see the young lady of the Song family unable to return home. If she were to rent another courtyard, she would inevitably be threatened by the Song family again. I have never liked the old man of the Song family, so I rented this courtyard to her,” the landlord said with a smile. “Will Your Highness blame me?”

The woman chuckled, "You mean well. Bring me a box of almond cookies from Jiabaozhai tomorrow, and I'll forget about this."

After chatting casually for a few minutes, they left one after the other.

After the sounds outside had subsided for a long time, Ai Cao finally released the short sword she was holding and placed it back beside her pillow. The smoke in the room gathered at the lintel, forming a thin white veil. She lay flat on the bed, watching the veil slowly disappear with the morning light.

There was still some time before Songtang woke up.

Ai Cao asked the system, "You should know who was chatting outside the door last night, right?"

The system whispered, "I know. The landlady you met during the day is the tutor of the Grand Princess, and the other person you were chatting with... is the Crown Princess, the eldest daughter of the current emperor."

"Where's the Song family?" Ai Cao continued to ask.

The system hesitated for a moment before saying, "Songtang's father is currently a third-rank official in the Secretariat, while her mother only manages the inner quarters. Songtang has an older brother and a twin brother who was born at the same time as her."

"Is it only pine and crabapple that were left in the countryside?" Artemisia asked.

"Hmm," the system said.

Ai Cao responded. In her eyes, Song Tang's mother was no different from the current emperor. The only difference was that one stopped giving birth to girls, while the other continued until she gave birth to boys.

If this were an ordinary world, it wouldn't be so bad. But how can such a trend still exist when a woman is in power?

Ai Cao lay in bed for a while longer, until the white mist on the roof beams dissipated, before getting up to open the doors and windows for ventilation. Song Tang was still asleep, so Ai Cao went out to buy some simple breakfast.

In the morning, the streets were crowded with people, each heading in their own direction. Ai Cao followed the steam from breakfast to the shop, queued up, bought two baskets of steamed buns and a few steamed breads, and then headed back.

Someone nearby shouted, "...It's just changing to a thinner coffin, what's wrong with that!"

Two breaths later, the man's voice trembled with tears: "Why are you stopping me like this? You had the heart to take all the family's money to drink, and even stole the money your mother had buried for her coffin! And now you still have the nerve to say I'm bad? How dare you!"

Ai Cao glanced in that direction from afar. There, a woman and a man were struggling with each other. The woman slapped the man, making him stagger.

The man covered his face and fell to the ground, shouting loudly.

Enraged, the woman laughed coldly, then fiercely grabbed a wooden plank and smashed it down on the man's head. Passersby dodged the few drops of blood splattering on the man's face, and soon the area where they stood became a vacuum in the crowd.

Ai Cao withdrew her gaze listlessly. She couldn't handle all the housework, so when faced with some "family conflicts," she chose to ignore them for the time being.

Besides, it's obvious that the woman was in the lead. She had no reason or need to interfere in other people's "family affairs."

They wouldn't actually beat someone to death in the street.

She took breakfast back with her. She shared breakfast with Songtang and casually mentioned what happened last night.

Songtang had no memory of last night. Aicao gently brushed those things aside and casually asked about today's plans.

Song Tang thought for a moment and said seriously, "...I want to go to my parents' house again and ask." She smiled awkwardly, "If I come to the capital but can't even see their faces...that would be too bad."

Ai Cao smiled and agreed.

She began to wonder how Songtang would react if she knew what her parents were thinking now.