Chapter 357 Manluo, do you still want to escape?
Another half month has passed.
Jiang Qingyue's health gradually improved, her speech became more coherent, and with the help of palace maids, she was able to walk slowly in the palace.
These days, no matter how busy Xie Zhen was with state affairs, he would always take time out every day to accompany his beloved wife, listening to her talk about some vague fragments from her sleep, or talk about the children.
The Xie brothers paid their respects to their mother every day without fail.
Xie Lan would hold a map and talk in detail about the changes in the territory of Nanzhao over the years; Xie Zhan would sit beside his mother and tell some of his childhood mischievous stories, making Jiang Jingyue laugh until she cried.
Xie Lan's Crown Princess, Mu Ya, Princess of Southern Xinjiang, is gentle and sensible, and pays respects to her husband in Liuxia Palace every day.
Empress Dowager Wu was old and not as strong as she once was, but she managed to stay strong and came to Liuxia Palace once to apologize to her daughter-in-law for throwing Xiyan away. Jiang Qingyue was kind by nature and did not want to pursue the matter further. After all, her daughter had returned safely.
Compared to her son and daughter-in-law, Jiang Qingyue is more attached to Xiyan. She always holds her daughter's hand tightly and can't see or love her enough.
However, she also felt sorry for her daughter's health as she was due to give birth in a month, so she told her daughter not to come to visit every day.
But Xiyan had finally reunited with her mother and was unwilling to listen.
She stayed in her mother's bedroom all day, wishing to make up for all the regrets of the past fifteen years.
These days, Manluo is also accompanying Jiang Qingyue.
It turned out that on the second day after Jiang Qingyue woke up, she called Manluo to her bedside, held Manluo's hand and thanked her again and again.
"Miss Manluo, if it weren't for you, I'm afraid I would never see my children again."
She was no stranger to Manluo.
While she was in a coma, she heard Xiyan mention this name countless times.
In my daughter's mouth, Manluo can always turn poisonous weeds into sugar, and she said that when she smiled, her eyes looked like stars.
Now that I've seen him in person, he's just as lively as my daughter described.
There is always a bit of cunning in her eyes, yet she seems unruly. She has the mind of a natural boy, but she has an extremely beautiful face. What she says is full of jokes, which makes the palace people in the palace laugh. Even Jiang Jingyue curls up the corners of her lips from time to time.
However, Jiang Qingyue looked at Manluo's bulging belly and caught a glimpse of Xie Zhan's unconcealable tenderness when he looked at her, and sighed inwardly.
She had heard Xiyan mention that Manluo had a crush on Tianqi's imperial teacher, whose surname was Chu. If she didn't love him, why would she give birth to this child?
Originally, she wanted to adopt Manluo as her adopted daughter, but in the end, she gave up because of her own son's feelings.
However, she knew that Manluo was an orphan and had no relatives in this world. Jiang Qingyue, on the contrary, showed even more care and love for her. Whatever Xiyan had, Manluo would have no less.
She even secretly ordered someone to make two jade bracelets, handed one to Xiyan, and put the other on Manluo's wrist, smiling gently:
"Manluo, come and talk to me often in the future."
Manluo felt a pang of pain in her nose as she touched the warm jade bracelet.
In the past fifteen years, she has never enjoyed the happiness of family life. This time when she came to Nanzhao, she found so many more relatives.
The Southern Emperor and the Southern Empress treated her with great kindness, Xie Lan was even more courteous to her, Xi Yan treated her like a sister, and Xie Zhan...
In short, her heart is filled with happiness and emotion every day.
She felt particularly close to Jiang Qingyue, an elder who was similar to Xiyan in temperament and appearance.
She simply stayed by Jiang Qingyue's side when she had nothing to do. Today she would tell her how the poisonous insects in southern Xinjiang danced, and tomorrow she would tell her about the embarrassing incident when she used poison powder to trick the enemy. This made Jiang Qingyue laugh so hard that she couldn't stop, and she sighed repeatedly:
"You girl, you're such a darling."
…
Ever since Queen Nan woke up, and as the month was getting older, Xiyan became more and more reluctant to leave the palace.
Manluo was not the type to be content with staying in the palace. After chatting and laughing with Jiang Qingyue for about a month, she could no longer think of any funny jokes and was tired of the square sky. She felt like there was a jumping rabbit in her heart.
She held Xiyan's hand and muttered several times that she wanted to go out of the palace to see what was going on and collect some information so that she could have new stories to tell Queen Nan when she came back, but Xiyan immediately refused.
The Southern Emperor reminded people every day that the outside of the palace was different from the inside, and that Xiao Nanyue and Helian Feng's men might still be lurking in the dark, so they were not allowed to step out of the palace unless necessary.
Xiyan was now filled with the desire to accompany her mother. With her pregnant belly weighing heavily, she was out of breath after walking a few steps. She smiled and waved her hand:
"You can't sit still, so just be patient for a while. After the baby is born, we can go to the night market together."
Manluo agreed, but he felt envious when he saw the pigeons flying outside the hall.
Birds have freedom, so why can't I leave the palace?
On this day, when they heard that Crown Princess Mu Ya was pregnant, everyone in the palace rushed to the East Palace to congratulate her.
Xiyan and the others also went to the East Palace, and no one paid attention to her anymore. Manluo immediately came up with an idea.
She took off her usual eye-catching purple dress and fished out a plain goose-yellow dress from the bottom of her trunk. The high, curved curves of her figure were subtly concealed by the wide hem. Her black hair was loosely tied into a flowing bun, pinned with an ordinary shell hairpin, and her face was bare of makeup.
She originally wanted to change her appearance, but the disguise powders used in the Xuanyan Makeup Technique all contained slight toxins. She was pregnant and worried about affecting the fetus, so after thinking about it, she put the disguise box back into her sleeve.
She turned around in front of the bronze mirror and looked at her plain appearance in the mirror. She really looked like a pretty young lady from an ordinary family.
While everyone on the palace road was running towards the East Palace, Manluo crouched down and slipped through the corner gate.
Xie Zhan once told her that there was a secret passage out of the palace behind the rockery in the imperial garden.
She would stroll around the imperial garden every day and easily find the secret passage covered by wisteria, and quietly leave the palace along the secret passage.
When she came out of the secret passage, she was already standing behind a dilapidated land temple.
She brushed the dust off her skirt, figured out the direction, and headed towards Baiwei Street, the busiest street in Jiangdu City.
As soon as I arrived at the street corner, the sweet aroma of fried sugar cakes wrapped in hot steam hit me in the face. The vendors carrying shoulder poles shouted "Osmanthus cakes", and the glass sugar figures on the stalls were shining with colorful lights.
She first bought a string of candied haws. The hawthorns were covered with crystal sugar, and when she bit them, the sweet and sour juice splashed on the tip of her tongue.
After taking a few bites and throwing them into the corner, he went to the dough figurine stall and watched the old artist make a majestic general. He couldn't help but applaud.
The sound of gongs and drums from the acrobatic troupe attracted her attention again. She saw several teenagers somersaulting through the fire ring, and the crowd burst into cheers.
At this moment, she was watching intently, with half of the glutinous rice ball in her hand eaten and some sesame seeds still stuck on her mouth.
Suddenly, she felt a tightness around her waist, and her whole body was pulled into his arms by a brute force.
"lecher!"
Manluo was furious. She never expected that someone would dare to molest a pregnant woman in broad daylight under the emperor's feet?
It's okay to tease others, but if you tease her, then your life is over!
She took advantage of the strength of the opponent's arm and used a Yellow Dragon Turn. While her elbow hit the man's ribs, her right hand raised in a fast and fierce arc.
There was a crisp sound of "bang", but it did not cause much commotion in the noisy street.
However, the man behind him actually took the slap head-on. Red marks quickly appeared on his fair and handsome face, but there was an almost crazy fire burning in his eyes.
He grabbed Manluo's wrist with his backhand, almost crushing her bones with such force, his voice hoarse like sandpaper:
"Manluo, do you still want to escape?"
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