A young woman dressed in a pale yellow palace dress and with her hair styled in a brocade cloud bun entered from outside the door. She lowered her head slightly and walked to the Empress Dowager, where she gracefully and quietly bowed, her voice clear and melodious: "Zhaoping greets the Empress Dowager."

"Get up quickly," the Empress Dowager said, this time not only with words but also with a gesture of support. The difference in her feelings for Ji Fengyao and for this Princess Zhaoping was immediately apparent.

"Zhaoping heard that the Empress Dowager's old ailment had recently flared up again. She happened to meet the doctor who had treated her grandmother's leg ailment in the past, so she asked him for some medicine. Zhaoping had heard her grandmother say that this medicine was very effective. The Empress Dowager might as well give it a try."

Princess Zhaoping took the medicine from her personal maid and personally handed it to Aunt Sun.

Aunt Sun quickly smiled and said, "Princess Zhaoping is the most considerate. The Empress Dowager's knees have been aching terribly these past few days."

"Zhaoping, you're so kind. Come sit next to me." The Empress Dowager smiled broadly and pulled Princess Zhaoping to sit down.

Princess Zhaoping turned around and only then noticed that Shang Xiye was there. She quickly straightened up, walked gracefully to Shang Xiye, curtsied, and said softly, "Zhaoping greets the Ninth Prince."

Seemingly unaware that the person sitting next to the Ninth Prince was the Ninth Princess, she asked hesitantly, "And this lady is...?"

"This is your brother Xiye's newlywed princess, who just arrived in the capital a couple of days ago," the Empress Dowager said with a smile, without mentioning that Ji Fengyao had once saved her.

Brother Xiye, hehe.

Ji Fengyao slightly lifted her eyelids, sat casually in her chair, and smiled as she looked at Princess Zhaoping. Since everyone was determined to treat her as a boorish bandit, then so be it; bandits don't understand etiquette.

Princess Zhaoping, however, could not. She could only curtsy to Ji Fengyao with proper decorum. Before curtsying, she did not forget to timidly glance at Shang Xiye. Her hesitant and coy attitude was all too obvious: "Zhaoping greets the Ninth Prince's Consort."

"Isn't she the Princess Consort?" Ji Fengyao smiled without any sense of superiority, her "naive and stupid" demeanor immediately apparent: "Since you call the Ninth Prince 'brother,' you should call me 'sister-in-law.'"

Zhaoping bit her lip, her eyes, as clear as autumn water, filled with grievance, and glanced at Shang Xiye beside her.

Unfortunately, Shang Xiye was never the kind of person who would show tenderness to women. He sat there with a cold expression, as if everything around him was irrelevant.

The Empress Dowager's eyes flashed with a sinister light, but she smiled and smoothed things over, saying, "Zhaoping, you should call the Ninth Prince's Consort 'sister-in-law'."

"Zhaoping greets Princess Consort, sister-in-law." Princess Zhaoping, her eyes sparkling, gave Ji Fengyao another curtsy.

Ji Fengyao grinned broadly and pulled out a large stack of silver notes from her bosom. These were given to her by Xique before Ji Fengming left two days ago.

She picked and chose from the bills, pulled out the smallest denomination, fifty taels, and generously stuffed it into Zhaoping's hand, saying, "Good sister, sweetie, your sister-in-law is giving you money to buy some sweet cakes."

Zhaoping: "..."

Tears welled up in her eyes and almost spilled out; her hands, clutching the silk handkerchief, trembled slightly.

Although she lost her parents and brothers, she had won the favor of the Empress Dowager over the years and was pampered and cherished, even more so than the legitimate princesses in the palace.

This bandit actually tried to get rid of her with fifty taels of silver. Did he think she was a beggar?!

But the bandits were unreasonable, and she couldn't lose the dignity of a royal princess, so she could only suppress her anger.

After receiving the silver note from Ji Fengyao, Princess Zhaoping was relieved that she hadn't torn a hole in it on the spot. Her eyes lingered on Shang Xiye before she turned and went to the Empress Dowager's side, her head hanging low with a wronged expression.