"Okay, thank you." She thanked them politely and looked up behind them.

The security guard was pushing a small cart behind him, which was loaded with several large packages.

Su Zhou mailed her so many things that the security guard couldn't carry them all by himself, so he simply pushed a small cart over to her.

"Let me help you get your things down," the security guard said, parking the trolley and helping her take down all the large packages.

"Thank you." She thanked him again, saw the security guard off, glanced at the pile of packages beside her, and walked to the sofa. "What are all these things you bought for me? Why are they all so big?"

“You’ll see when you open it. I ordered it specially after I came back,” Su Zhou said with a mysterious smile. “You can ask Qi Luo to help you open it.”

“He’s not here,” Mu Qingyun picked up a cup of tea and took a sip. “He’s gone out to do something important.”

Upon hearing this, Su Zhou looked surprised, but did not ask any further questions. "Then I'll just tell you directly. Among those packages, there is a konghou that I customized, a guqin, and a puppet and a screen that I gave you. I remember you studied shadow puppetry for a while."

"And there's double-sided embroidery. I remember Your Majesty, your mother taught you double-sided embroidery. Nowadays, embroidery is all done by machines. They just give you a pattern and start embroidering. And they don't even know what double-sided embroidery is, so nobody knows how to do it by hand."

"There's also Chinese chess and Go. You can ask me to play a few games with you."

Mu Qingyun looked down, her expression unreadable. Only after Su Zhou stopped speaking did she raise her head. "Are you done?"

"Yes, Your Majesty, I've finished speaking." Su Zhou sensed that Mu Qingyun's mood was off, so he swallowed back the words he was about to say and didn't dare to utter another word.

"Double-sided embroidery and shadow puppetry—I didn't expect you to bring those up in front of me." Mu Qingyun said expressionlessly, "Strategist, you haven't really forgotten why I learned those two things, have you?"

That was a sad and painful past.

The humiliating time before she became empress.

“Your Majesty, I thought you had let it go,” Su Zhou’s face also became solemn. “After you ascended the throne, you used almost every cruel method imaginable. Wasn’t more than thirty days of torture enough to appease you?”

"Your anger has subsided, but that humiliating past will never be over, nor will it disappear just because I live a life of luxury afterward." Mu Qingyun lowered her eyes. "Don't say that again. I'll throw these two things away in a bit."

“…Yes.” Su Zhou conceded. He had no choice but to comply; His Majesty was clearly angry.

"Then, shall we talk about something else?" Su Zhou asked tentatively, glancing at her expression as he spoke, afraid that he might accidentally offend His Majesty again.

Mu Qingyun was clearly still caught up in her emotions, and her voice was icy as she asked, "What do you want to say?"

"Today's tea was really good. I noticed that the tea available for pre-order online was almost all sold out," Su Zhou said, changing the subject to today's tea.

To be honest, today's live stream went quite smoothly, especially after the tea ceremony. Many netizens wanted to try it, and Su Qiluo also drank it. If they had drunk it sooner, they could have shown off the same tea as General Su.

Many food bloggers are also eager to use their networks to quickly obtain tea and attract a wave of popularity and traffic.

"Tomorrow is Sunday, and I only need to train for two hours. Come before I rest and play a few games with me." Mu Qingyun said, walking over and choosing the smallest package that looked most like a chess set, and opened it.

"Your Majesty would like to play chess first?" Mu Qingyun's face was no longer visible on Su Zhou's screen, but he could still hear that Mu Qingyun was nearby.

"Yes, it's been a long time since I played, and I'm really getting addicted." Mu Qingyun completely unpacked the items. In her time, after finishing official business, she would invite a few ministers over to play chess while drinking tea.

This is their most comfortable and relaxing time.

"Alright, I've been craving it for a long time too." Su Zhou readily agreed, then asked him what time he needed to arrive before saying goodbye and hanging up the video call.

After disassembling the chess pieces, Mu Qingyun started fiddling with the guqin and konghou beside her. She wasn't very good at the konghou; she could only play a few tunes at most.

With that in mind, she took the guqin apart.

With delicate hands plucking the strings, the zither produces melodious sounds; it is a fine instrument.

Looking at the television, I noticed that because of period dramas, the guzheng and xiao (vertical flute) were not lost to history. However, most of the actors in the dramas were just pretending to play them; in reality, they didn't know how to play them at all.

A well-known folk song came to mind, and she immediately picked up her hands and played the score.

This folk song is all about singing, but she doesn't sing very well.

In those years, in order to gather intelligence, she specially built a brothel, ostensibly as a female musician who only sold her art, but also to perform with a brothel girl with an excellent singing voice, and to listen to some gossip that could not be heard in the imperial court.

She also learned to play the guqin at that time.

As for the konghou, it was said that a concubine, in an attempt to win favor with the emperor, played the konghou in the imperial garden and even caught many butterflies to keep beside her.

As soon as she came out, they immediately released the butterflies, which swirled around the concubine, creating a beautiful sight.

She was genuinely intrigued and went up to ask about the konghou (a type of Chinese harp).

Su Qiluo had said tonight that he might not be able to come back, so she felt relieved and took the guqin back to her room to begin studying it.

In the course of this research, time was lost.

The next morning, the moment the alarm clock rang, she really wanted to smash that annoying clock.

But thinking of Zhou Hengyue's personality, she rubbed her eyes and forced herself to get out of bed.

"Su Qiluo".

She called out instinctively, but no one answered.

It seems they haven't returned yet.

With a sigh, she quickly tidied herself up and got out of bed. Because Su Qiluo wasn't there, she didn't have breakfast.

I quickly brewed a cup of coffee to perk myself up, and drank it while straightening my clothes, finishing it just before heading out.

She pushed open the door, ready to leave, but was startled by the person squatting by the door.

"who!"

"Ah, it's me, don't be nervous." The person squatting on the ground stood up. The face was familiar; it was the security guard who delivered the package to him yesterday.

"Is there something you need?" Mu Qingyun looked at him and asked softly.

Could it be that something was left for her yesterday? But after checking according to Su Zhou's instructions, she found nothing missing.

"Ah, I was entrusted by General Su to bring you breakfast." The security guard smiled憨厚ly and handed her the bag in his hand.

Was it commissioned by Su Qiluo?

"Thank you," she said, taking the bag and looking at its contents.

Each bite-sized steamed bun is labeled with either meat or red bean paste filling, and accompanied by a steaming cup of porridge.