swear
Huang Ying immediately became anxious and frightened: "If you die, won't my mistress also die? Waaah..."
Jiang Yan was at her wits' end. She hadn't figured out whether things were as she suspected, when Huang Ying burst into tears, making her feel frustrated and irritable.
"Alright, alright, why are you crying? Now is not the time to cry!"
Huang Ying blinked her tearful eyes and looked at her blankly.
Her heart softened a little: "Tell me, is your young lady pampered at home?"
The warbler's cries subsided slightly.
Jiang Yan followed up, "If I'm not mistaken, your young lady didn't fall into the water by accident, did she? I remember when I woke up, your Madam Liu said, 'She's alright, why punish her?' Am I right?"
The oriole only sobbed, seemingly unwilling to answer the question.
Jiang Yan smiled indifferently: "You can tell me if you want, or you can not, it has nothing to do with me anyway! I'm just asking out of curiosity, to see if your young lady was deliberately killed!"
"No way!"
"Who knows?" Jiang Yan stood up nonchalantly, stretched vigorously, and prepared to go out.
The oriole got anxious and ran up to her, spreading her arms to block her way.
"What's wrong now? It's no use stopping me! It's not like I'm stopping your young lady from coming back! I want to get out of her body as soon as possible!" She was so frail that she was out of breath after just a few steps. If she were on her period, she would be in excruciating pain!
"You must help me!! Otherwise..."
"Otherwise what? Report me? I'll just say it directly, I'm not afraid of death! There's a saying, 'The sooner you die, the sooner you'll be reborn,' right?" Jiang Yan was twenty-two after all, and she still had a lot of presence intimidating a twelve or thirteen-year-old girl.
Sure enough, upon hearing this, Huang Ying slowly withdrew her arms and looked apologetic.
"Please don't be angry, I just wanted to... ask you for help."
"What kind of help are you offering? There needs to be some explanation."
Huang Ying looked up at her timidly, then lowered her eyes and said, "If Miss is truly unfortunate... this servant would like you to help Miss seek justice."
"So, it seems your eldest daughter, Liu Ruyi, isn't doing so well in the Liu family?"
This time, Huang Ying didn't avoid the question and immediately nodded.
Jiang Yan: "I can't help you if you want to know if she can come back, because I don't know if I can leave her body. I'm not a god! But if you want me to help you find out how she went from falling into the water and catching a chill to dying, I can give it a try."
Upon hearing this, Huang Ying burst into tears again: "Do you think my young mistress must be dead?"
Jiang Yan couldn't help but sigh again: "I don't know, but I'm currently in her body. Her soul has left her body, there must be a reason for that, right? Who in their right mind would experience a separation between body and soul? Right? Stop crying! Your crying is making me anxious!"
Huang Ying suddenly gasped and forced herself to stop crying.
Jiang Yan couldn't help but feel that he had been too heartless. The young girl was just worried about her mistress, what was wrong with that?
He softened his voice and comforted Huang Ying, "Huang Ying, think about it. Things are already like this, crying won't do any good! We need to think of a way to solve this, don't you think?"
Huang Ying nodded vigorously, repeatedly saying, "This servant knows, this servant will definitely listen to whatever you say!"
Jiang Yan finally dared to breathe a sigh of relief.
"Let's each think about these things first, sort them out, and then find an opportunity to sit down and discuss them properly."
"Yes, I will obey you."
Jiang Yan couldn't help but sigh again. Now that her true identity was revealed, she no longer needed to constantly think about pretending, but this only applied to her interactions with Huang Ying.
She will definitely be dealing with the other wives frequently, including Xiao Yiqing, and Shangguan Zeyu will naturally be involved as well. She needs to think carefully about what to do next.
"Alright, let's go for a walk in the yard while it's still not too hot!" Jiang Yan glanced deeply at Huang Ying, who had her eyes downcast, gently patted her left shoulder, and slowly walked out.
Actually, things haven't improved much at Pear Blossom Residence.
She didn't know what the courtyards of Xiao Yiqing's other wives were like, but the Pear Blossom Residence where she lived was indeed rather "shabby".
Apart from the eight pear trees planted in the yard, there were no other flowers or plants.
Besides a four-person white jade round stone table and four matching stone stools in the northeast corner of the courtyard, there were no other decorations.
In the very center of the courtyard, leading to the main gate, is a straight bluestone path that allows two people to walk side by side. The rest of the area is paved with small pebbles, almost all of which are buried in the soil. However, if someone accidentally falls on it, they can still get scraped and hurt.
Frustrated, Jiang Yan walked around the seven pear trees again and again, sighing repeatedly.
She didn't know how many times she had sighed when the oriole spoke.
"Master, what's wrong? Why do you keep sighing?"
Jiang Yan looked at her. She had been sitting at the white jade table at some point, doing needlework. Judging from her appearance, she had already recovered from her sadness. Instead of expressing her frustration, she said...
"The weather is so nice, it's so boring to stay in one place all day, let's go out and have some fun."
"Go out? Where do you want to go, Master?"
"Anywhere is fine!" Jiang Yan's interest was immediately piqued.
Huang Ying stopped what she was doing, glanced thoughtfully at the air, and looked at her: "The Prince took the Princess to the palace today, and they probably won't be back until tonight. Madam Wang and Madam Wu went to see a play and won't be back until the afternoon. Let me take you for a walk in the garden."
"What garden? The garden of the Prince's mansion?"
"Yes, it's over in Peach Blossom Village, it's especially beautiful." Huang Ying's eyes lit up as she spoke.
Jiang Yan didn't care. He had visited all kinds of parks and botanical gardens in modern society and seen many exotic flowers and plants, so he wasn't interested in this.
"How about we go out and have some fun?" Jiang Yan suggested enthusiastically.
She had never been to an ancient market before. In the time she read time-travel novels, the protagonists would come to ancient times and always encounter many strange and wonderful things when they went to the market, and they could also eat a lot of delicious local specialties.
She was tired of the food at the Prince Duan's mansion; it was all soup and broth all day long, and she could never get enough of it.
She wanted to go out of the mansion for a big meal and change her diet.
Jiang Yan was feeling quite pleased with herself, but before she could enjoy her happiness for long, Huang Ying poured cold water on her enthusiasm.
"Your Highness, women are not allowed to leave the manor without the Prince's permission."
"What? Are you kidding me? Didn't I hear that people can leave the manor at will?" That's not what the time-travel novels she was reading said!
Huang Ying: "Who said that? How could that be? Any woman in the Prince's household, from the Princess Consort to the Madam, must obtain the Prince's permission before leaving the manor. Moreover, they must register in advance on the day of their departure. They must clearly state when they leave, how many people are leaving, where they are going, who they are going to see, what they are going to do, and when they will return. And they must also register upon returning, explaining who they met and what they did. It's very troublesome!"
"No way?" This is different from the time-travel novels she's read.
The novels about dynasties she had read all said that women could freely enter and leave the royal palace, right? How could such a thing exist?
What's the difference between this and losing personal freedom and being monitored?
Even so, she probably couldn't leave the palace secretly, could she?
Huang Ying watched her intently, and when she didn't hear a word, she asked again, "Master, are you still going to stroll in the garden? If you are, you should go as soon as possible."
Jiang Yan thought about it and decided not to go.
According to the time-travel novels she had read, as well as all sorts of other novels about women confined to their chambers, the entanglements of love, hate, and grudges usually begin with admiring flowers or strolling on a lake. What if she were to wander around the garden and bump into someone she shouldn't be with?
If that person were Shangguan Zeyu returning from outside, or some of his cronies coming to see him... well... just thinking about it makes me incredibly jealous!
"I won't go. I'll just stay here at Pear Blossom Residence and enjoy the fragrance of the flowers," Jiang Yan said, slowly walking towards Huang Ying.
Huang Ying looked slightly surprised, but said nothing and went back to her needlework.
Jiang Yan walked around behind her and glanced at her. She was embroidering a leaf of a large red peony. Jiang Yan walked to her left and sat down.
Huang Ying noticed that she had been looking at her, raised her eyelids slightly, and glanced at her: "Why is my mistress looking at me like that?"
"You're really good-looking!" Jiang Yan grinned.
Huang Ying was displeased: "Master, you can't be so frivolous!"
Jiang Yan was dumbfounded. After a moment of stunned silence, she gave a wry smile: "Flirtatious? You're calling me frivolous? Are you serious?"
"I'm not joking!"
Jiang Yan couldn't save face: "You should know that the word 'frivolous' shouldn't be used to describe a woman so easily, right?"
“But your expression and tone just now were really frivolous, like a lecherous man,” Huang Ying said seriously.
Jiang Yan was speechless: "I'm a woman! I only said that because I genuinely thought you were pretty, how could you call me a lecher? That hurts me so much!"
Huang Ying: "My young mistress would never lose her composure like this! You are not allowed to do what you just did in the manner of the young mistress! What you did is a disgrace to the young mistress's reputation!"
"What? I defamed her? Are you kidding me?" Jiang Yan broke down completely.
Huang Ying: "I did say I would listen to whatever you say, but only on the condition that you don't do anything bad while pretending to be a young lady. Otherwise, I won't give you a good look!"
Jiang Yan was so angry she laughed: "Then why do you keep calling me 'Master'? Are you kidding me?"
Huang Ying didn't say anything, lowered her eyes, and went back to her needlework.
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