Chapter 10: Freeing Her Home

After eating half a fried dough stick, Mu Xue stopped eating with satisfaction.

Rong Er, who was serving beside her, handed her a warm towel and wiped her hands. Two maids holding basins of fragrant soap also stepped forward.

When her husband Dorji came over, Muxue returned to her dignified princess appearance.

Mu Xue was a little worried about having dinner at the same table with someone she wasn't very familiar with, fearing that the person would say some inexplicable nonsense and disturb her enjoyment of the food.

Fortunately, Dorji didn't say anything. Maybe it was a habit he acquired in the army, so he ate quickly, finishing his meal in just a few bites.

Mu Xue thought for a moment and said, "My husband seems to have the habit of doing morning exercises. I may get up late, so I don't have to wait for him to eat with me. When you want to order food, just tell the kitchen directly."

Dorji looked at her with amusement.

It's obvious that she doesn't want to eat facing him every day, but she has to come up with a high-sounding reason.

The cleverness of its eyes rolling around is like that of a wild rabbit on the grassland.

With a personality like that, if you get too close to him, he'll jump up and run away, right?

He nodded: "Okay, I see that the princess seems to eat less while I am here, and it is my fault. Princess, don't worry, I won't stick to you all day."

After he finished speaking, Bian Liluo stood up, saluted towards Mu Xue, and walked out.

Mu Xue heaved a sigh of relief. The serious manner she had been sitting in immediately collapsed, and she continued to eat her breakfast in a relaxed manner.

After having meals, offering sacrifices to ancestors, and encouraging the two housekeepers to prepare the banquet carefully, Mu Xue finally had time to patrol her small territory after finishing these trivial tasks.

There is a special kind of gentleness in the princess's mansion in the twilight.

The four-entry courtyard is divided into two parts: east, middle, and west. The main hall in the middle is not much to say, it is only used during festivals. The east part is mostly houses, with a meeting hall at the front, and a room for ancestor worship and burning incense at the back. The back is the housing estate, which is prepared for the young masters to live in in the future, and is currently vacant.

Mu Xue was thinking about setting up a room as a study. She had moved a cart full of books, calligraphy and paintings from the palace, which could be placed here.

There was a partition wall in the west courtyard, and a corner door was opened on the side to facilitate the entry and exit of the husband. If she wanted to, she could just close the gate of the west courtyard, which would be equivalent to completely isolating the husband's residence. But after all, they were newly married now, so doing this was a bit too much.

Further back there is a small and exquisite back garden with flowing water, rockery and strange stones. Although it is winter and the flowers and plants are not lush, there is a pine and a cypress tree that add some green to this season.

Mu Xue walked briskly on the flower tiles. She climbed up the rockery and looked back at the entire mansion from above. It was already time to light the lights, and wherever the lights illuminated was the Princess's mansion.

She admired it quietly, her heart filled with joy.

This is her house, her home!

It turns out that walking in a house that belongs to you alone is such a proud feeling.

That’s great. That’s great.

Mu Xue went back and forth and walked around the princess's mansion three times. When she saw something she didn't like, she ordered people to change it.

Wooden furniture is too hard, prepare some cotton chair cushions to make it soft to sit on. The interior decoration of the bedroom is too old-fashioned, change some green curtains, and the furniture should be lighter in color...

Even though she knew she wouldn't be staying there for long, she was still willing to take the trouble to change things to the way she liked them.

It’s really strange. When I lived in the palace before, I never had such thoughts.

When she recalled those days, she always felt that those days were like a handkerchief, a handkerchief drying in the shade indoors on a gloomy day, filled with damp moisture.

Although the Forbidden City is large, it is small when viewed from an individual perspective.

In the Yikun Palace alone, besides the main concubine, Concubine Yi, there were also two concubines, a concubine and a noble lady. Although they each had their own rooms, they were under the same roof, so they were inevitably a little restrained.

Whatever extra food was ordered today or what furniture was replaced, most of the other ladies in the palace will know tomorrow.

Mu Xue is a person with a strong sense of boundaries and hates this feeling very much. So she simply does nothing and goes with the flow, so that she won't be noticed or talked about.

Now, such a big princess mansion is all hers, except for the small courtyard for her husband.

Here, she is the boss. She has no parents or in-laws. Whatever she says is the truth. How can she not be happy?

In the next few days, Muxue completely let herself go, feeling a kind of leisurely and happy feeling as if she had just taken a big exam.

Mother Zhao also asked whether she should gather the servants together for a lecture or something, but she always said she would talk about it later.

She just finished the exam, and she is not allowed to relax for two days?

Take a few days off and we’ll talk about it later.

It was so comfortable that when she entered the palace to return the gift, even Concubine Yi smiled when she saw her: "Oh, I haven't seen you for a few days. The fourth girl is really radiant."

Mu Xue just smiled: "Really?"

Concubine Yi raised her hand and pinched her face: "Yes. It seems that you get along well with your husband?"

It had nothing to do with the prince consort, but it was hard to explain, so Mu Xue nodded randomly.

"This way, I can feel a little more at ease."

After chatting for a while and asking about the situation in the mansion, Concubine Yi had a rough idea of ​​what was going on. She was happy for her and a little amused.

This fourth girl is smart, but a little careless. She studied hard for a long time before getting married, and she looked like she was going to work hard, but now she is happy and doesn't care about managing the household or socializing.

But for a princess, it's not a big deal. Just be happy.

When the time came, the female official came over to remind her, and Mu Xue said goodbye.

The Chinese New Year is about a month away, and I can go to the palace to see you again. There is no need to feel sad about parting.

The weather was getting colder and colder. In the princess's bedroom, the bed was covered with a thick mattress and a white wool blanket. It was warm and soft. Mu Xue sat cross-legged on it with a pillow around her waist. In the box with crabapple blossoms on the small kang table were all kinds of melon seeds, dried fruits and candied fruits.

The small red clay stove was steaming. Rong'er stirred the milk tea in the stoneware pot and asked, "Princess, are you really adding sugar?"

"Let go!" Mu Xue took a bite of the persimmon and said vaguely.

She had wanted to make sweet milk tea for a long time. The Qing Palace had always had the habit of drinking milk tea, but it was always salty milk tea, the kind with a layer of oil floating on it. It wasn't that it was bad, but Mu Xue drank sweet milk tea before she traveled through time, and ate it as a dessert, so her taste buds would stubbornly seek the original feeling.

Rong'er received the order and immediately put two small pieces of brown sugar in it and sprinkled some osmanthus jam.

The brown sugar slowly melts, the milk tea becomes more brown in color, and it also gives off a floral scent.

Holding a cup of hot sweet osmanthus milk tea in her hand, Mu Xue felt extremely comfortable. She told Rong Er to ask the kitchen to roll tapioca flour into small balls and boil them with brown sugar to add to the sweet milk tea.

Mother Zhao and Aunt Wu came in to talk. Mu Xue smiled and gave each of them a cup of sweet milk tea.

"It's cold outside, eat something hot to warm your stomach first."

The two thanked him, tasted the food, and then got down to business.

Mother Zhao was in charge of the guests. She said, "All the messages I sent have been replied to. Except for Princess Heshuo Kechun, all other palaces will have people coming. Princess Kechun said that she is very grateful for your kindness, but she has not been feeling well recently and is afraid that she will be ill after the illness. But she has prepared a gift to congratulate you."

Muxue nodded. She never remembered the names of these relatives, she only vaguely remembered that it was an aunt.

"Is she in poor health?" Mu Xue asked casually, "Should we send some ginseng to her as well?"

Mother Zhao looked a little strange: "That's not the case. The eldest princess has always been like this. She hasn't come out for a long time."

Aunt Wu beside her whispered, "It's better if you don't come."

Mu Xue heard it and felt a little strange: "Why do you say that?"

After all these years of getting along, Mu Xue knows her wet nurse quite well. Although she is a little stingy, she is a good person and will not speak ill of others for no reason.

Nanny Wu lowered her voice and said, "That's right. You're newly married. This is a bad omen."

Seeing that Muxue was still dazed, she asked, "No, Princess, you really have no impression?"

Mu Xue shook her head.

She was too lazy to get along with the ladies in the palace, let alone the relatives outside the palace.

"She was the former Princess Jianning. Later she changed her title to Princess Kechun." Nanny Wu reminded.

Princess Jianning? The name sounded familiar, but Mu Xue still couldn't remember the specific person.

"The princess is young, and she rarely comes to the palace, so it's normal for her to forget." Mother Zhao said, "Actually, what Nanny Wu said makes sense. The princess probably thought the same way, so she declined."

She introduced it in a low voice.

Princess Kechun was the daughter of Huang Taiji. In terms of seniority, she was the aunt of Emperor Kangxi and the great-aunt of Muxue. During the Shunzhi reign, her brother arranged for her to marry Wu Yingxiong, the son of Wu Sangui, the Prince of Pingxi. During the Kangxi reign, the Prince of Pingxi rebelled, and the husband of the princess and his son were strangled to death.

After the rebellion was quelled, the emperor gave the princess a new title, hoping that she would have a new beginning. Princess Kechun still lived in the same princess mansion, but from then on, she lived in seclusion and rarely saw people.