Time flies, and it is already July. On the first day of the first lunar month, Tian An received an invitation from the palace to the Qiqiao Palace Banquet on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month.
When the palace maid who delivered the invitation left, she also took Yaoyao back with her.
The post was sent by the Queen, so Tian An had to go and had to prepare in advance.
When I went to the Anguo Mansion to accompany my grandmother, I heard her say that the Qiqiao Palace Banquet was probably a large-scale blind date banquet prepared by the Queen for several princes and princesses in the palace who were about to get married.
Since she was already engaged, there was no need to prepare anything too grand, nor did she need to stand out too much at the banquet and steal the limelight from others. All she had to do was not make any mistakes.
The current emperor has a total of five princes and six princesses.
Except for the eldest son, Crown Prince Xiao Ling has already appointed a Crown Princess, the third prince Xiao Chen is engaged, the fifth prince Xiao Rong is too young, and the second prince Xiao Rui and the fourth prince Xiao Ce are both unmarried princes of marriageable age.
Among the princesses, except for the legitimate princess Xiao Yao who was given the title Yaoguang, and the fifth princess Yonghui who was of the same age as her, they were still young, and the eldest princess Yongyang was already married.
The remaining two princesses, Yongle, Yonglin and Yongjia, were still unmarried.
Therefore, the protagonists of this Qiqiao Banquet should be the second prince Xiao Rui, the fourth prince Xiao Ce, the second princess Yongle, the third princess Yonglin and the fourth princess Yongjia.
To be honest, if possible, Tian An would rather stay at home with her little apprentices.
Unfortunately, she could refuse to give face to anyone, but she absolutely could not and dared not give face to the Queen, whether in public or private.
However, although she had to attend the palace banquet and could not stay at home, she still instructed Chunxi to make preparations a few days in advance and asked her to bring the girls in the mansion to pray for skills and worship together.
When the lantern festival starts in the evening, each girl will be given one or two taels of silver and allowed to go to the street to buy what they like.
An Rong knew that Tian An was going to attend a palace banquet, and was afraid that she would not be able to cope with it, so she rushed back from Hope College that day to help her check her clothes and makeup.
After she was ready, she boarded the carriage that Zhao Yiming had come to pick her up in person, and then she and Mr. Han took Xiaokang, Xiaoqi, and everyone else back home to prepare for the Chinese Valentine's Day.
The most pitiful one was Tian Mingwu. All the other officials had holidays, but they, a few of the few military generals, had to stay alone at their posts in the camp outside the city and be ready to deal with emergencies at any time because the curfew was extended due to the Qixi Festival.
The carriage drove all the way towards the palace. Tian An told Zhao Yiming to drink less later and gave him a jade belt of the same style that he had given to An Yichen before.
"You'll use this today."
Zhao Yiming thought this was a Qixi Festival gift from Tian An, and happily took the jade belt and looked at it. "Why did you think of giving me this today?"
Tian An said solemnly, "It's because there are so many bees and butterflies today, and you look so attractive. If you don't prepare in advance, what will you do if you get into trouble?"
Not only did she let Zhao Yiming wear the jade belt, she also went to remind An Yichen specifically for fear that he would forget it.
Zhao Yiming understood the meaning behind her words and saw that she looked uneasy. He paused for a moment while holding the jade belt. Then he thought of something and raised the belt with a suspicious look on his face. "Does your jade belt have any hidden secrets?"
Tian An nodded and began to fiddle with the mechanism on the jade belt in front of him, and introduced to him the various antidotes and her special sleeping pills that had been pre-packed in small compartments.
Zhao Yiming's acceptance of this jade belt was much better than Anyichen's.
But he didn't understand, "Forget about the antidote, why is there also a sleeping pill?" He thought he was quite skilled, and since he was in the palace, he probably wouldn't need a sleeping pill.
Tian An knew what he was thinking after just one look at him, and immediately argued with him, "Although you are quite skilled, what if you get hit by someone else's attack and can't use your full strength? No matter how good my antidote is, it still needs time to work!"
If someone takes advantage of you during this period of weakness, what will you do?"
He pointed at the special-effect drug with a proud look on his face and said, "If you really encounter this situation, you only need to crush the pill lightly and apply some to the enemy's body.
I guarantee that he will fall to the ground immediately, and his memory will be confused when he wakes up. If he is weak-willed, he may not even remember that you drugged him.
Furthermore, this medicine dissipates very quickly after being crushed, and it is colorless and odorless, so there is no trace of it left afterward."
"So powerful?" Zhao Yiming was shocked when he looked at the small pill.
Tian An waved his hand, "It's nothing."
It sounded easy to say, but only she knew how much effort she had put into developing this drug.
Zhao Yiming looked at the drug in the jade belt and was stunned for a moment. The next second, his hands started to move. It was obvious that he wanted to take the pill out of the jade belt.
Tian An quickly stopped him, "What are you doing?"
Zhao Yiming looked into her eyes seriously and said, "You need such a good medicine more than I do."
Tian An angrily took the jade belt from him and tied it on him himself. "You'd better protect yourself! I have plenty of medicines I developed."
As she bent down and put the jade belt around his waist to put it on him, the corners of Zhao Yiming's mouth curled up more and more.
When she raised her head, he quickly stopped and said awkwardly, "You have to be careful too."
Tian An smiled and nodded. "Don't worry!"
As they were talking, they had already arrived at the palace gate and the carriage could go no further.
Zhao Yiming got off the carriage first and then turned around to help Tian An.
As soon as Tian An got off the horse and stood still, he saw the carriage from Prince Chen's Mansion coming.
Like Zhao Yiming, Xiao Chen jumped out of the carriage first, then turned around and helped Gu Jinyan down.
After the four of them greeted each other, they separated into two groups. Tian An and Gu Jinyan walked towards the palace gate for women, while Zhao Yiming and Xiao Chen walked to the other side.
At this time, many young ladies from official families were already standing at the palace gate, waiting to queue up to enter the palace. They thought they would have to wait in line for a long time, but they didn't expect that Yaoyao had actually sent Hongtong to wait for them at the palace gate in advance.
She was also accompanied by Zuo Yunshu and others who had arrived earlier.
Seeing the two of them coming over, several people came forward to greet them. After they exchanged a few pleasantries, Hongtong stood up and said, "Ladies, the princess is still waiting! Let's go in quickly and talk!"
"In that case, I'll trouble Miss Hongtong."
Several of them openly followed Hongtong and queued up to enter the palace, making many young ladies who had been queuing up so hard jealous.
Seeing them looking over, Tian An and the others bowed politely to them and said, "Ladies, please wait, we will go ahead."
The ladies couldn't bring themselves to confront each other, so they could only smile awkwardly and return the greeting.
When he walked to the front row, Tian An saw an "acquaintance" in the team.
When the "acquaintance" saw her, he instinctively exerted force with his hands, and the delicate robe was immediately wrinkled.
The look in her eyes was filled with resentment, hatred seemed to be real, and he wanted to torture her to death with his eyes.
Who else but Jiang Wanmeng could hate her so much?
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