After spending six or seven days in the palace, Lanqin began to feel bored. While the days of eating, drinking, and sleeping were once her dream, the monotony of such a life eventually became tiresome.
Fourth Master comes and goes every day like a typical nine-to-five job, just like an office worker. Sometimes he stays for breakfast to eat with Lanqin, and he also comes back to have lunch with her. Dinner is unpredictable. Sometimes he comes back to have dinner with Lanqin and talk to her; other times he comes back very late, often after Lanqin has gone to bed.
Several times, Lanqin was half asleep when someone would suddenly touch her and hug her intimately, making it difficult for her to sleep at night. However, when Fourth Master wanted to do physical labor, he absolutely disliked being refused. When Lanqin was too sleepy, she tried to refuse, but this only resulted in even more intense "retaliation." Lanqin had a very low threshold for excitement; as long as Fourth Master touched her, she would become extremely excited. The intensity and strength of Fourth Master's actions often overwhelmed Lanqin, and she was often too tired to keep her eyes open during the second round.
That day, Lanqin had been tossed and turned by the Fourth Master the night before, like a dumpling being stuck in the pot, so she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.
When I woke up in the morning, Fourth Master had already gone to "work".
"Brother, wake up! Brother, wake up!" The parrot, hanging under the main door, had become familiar with Lanqin and kept her company by talking and playing with her every day, becoming her timer.
"Shh~ Don't talk, let Gege sleep a little longer." Xicha was changing the parrot's water when it made that noise, which startled her.
Suddenly, a beautiful figure walked in through the doorway—it was none other than Consort Li from the Crown Prince's household. Xicha, seemingly unfamiliar with her, stood there dumbfounded. Nianxue, however, had already gone to greet her, curtsying to Consort Li and saying, "This servant greets Consort Li!"
"Where is your princess? This lady is really bored, so I came to play with Niu-mei." Consort Li, supporting Yu-shan, slowly walked inside. Nian-xue followed beside her, feeling extremely anxious because Lan-qin still hadn't gotten up. But if she told the truth, she was afraid of embarrassing Lan-qin.
"Please come inside and sit for a while, Consort. I'll go and call the Princess right away," Nianxue had no choice but to say.
Nianxue had already given Xicha a meaningful look, and the latter understood, immediately curtsied, and then turned and walked towards Lanqin's bedroom.
Nianxue welcomed Consort Li into the house. As she passed the parrot that had been given to Yu Lanqin, she couldn't help but stop and play with it for a while.
"Lanqin greets Consort Xicha!" Upon being informed by Xicha, Lanqin hurriedly got out of bed, quickly dressed, and rushed out to greet the guest.
Seeing Lanqin's expression, Li covered her mouth and chuckled, "It seems I've disturbed my sister's sweet dreams."
Lanqin blushed, worried that her habit of sleeping in late would become known. She quickly grabbed Li's hand and said, "The parrot my sister gave me is so much fun. It talks to me every day and is really smart."
Li smiled and followed Lanqin into the room. Seeing the playing cards she had played with the maids the night before spread out on Lanqin's table, she picked them up with interest and looked at them, exclaiming in surprise, "These are Western cards?"
Seeing that she recognized it, Lanqin nodded and said excitedly, "Can you do it? Shall we play a game together later?"
Li glanced at Yushan, who was standing beside her, and gestured for the latter to take out the things she had given to Lanqin.
“Sister, this is my first time visiting you, and I don’t have anything nice to give you, but this is alright. I hope you won’t mind.” Li took the brocade box from Yushan, opened it, and took out a string of amber beads, handing it to Lanqin.
Lanqin noticed that each piece of amber was perfectly round and smooth, like the tip of a little finger, with a full and soft jade-like texture; it was clearly top-quality jade. As the saying goes, one shouldn't accept undeserved favors, and Lanqin suddenly felt that this Consort Li had been a little too kind to her from the very beginning.
"Sister, you're here now, no need to bring anything. This amber bracelet is too valuable, you should take it back." Although Lanqin liked Li Shi somewhat, the Fourth Master was currently investigating her husband, and it was really inappropriate for her to accept her gift at this time.
Li insisted, but Lanqin deliberately put on a stern face and said, "Sister, if you really can't accept it, I'm already very happy to have the parrot as a gift. Don't be so polite with me."
Seeing that Lanqin insisted on not accepting it, Li had no choice but to put it away.
“Sister, the Crown Prince told me that he hasn’t drunk with the Fourth Prince for many days. He came today to ask me to invite the Fourth Prince over for a drink. To be honest, since the Fourth Prince moved out of here, the two brothers haven’t drunk together at Yuqing Palace.”
"Oh, Fourth Master is busy with his work every day, so I'm afraid he doesn't have time to go. Now that he's back, I will tell him about the Crown Prince's invitation." Lanqin knew that Fourth Master was probably not willing to meet with the Crown Prince in private at the moment, after all, what he was doing involved even the Crown Prince.
When Li saw Lanqin say this, she turned her face and smiled, "Come on, sister, let me accompany you for a walk. You must be bored to death being confined to this prince's quarters every day."
When Lanqin heard her say this, she readily agreed. Because Lanqin was in a hurry to welcome Li Shi, she had only simply tied her hair up in a bun. If she went out like this, she was afraid that people would laugh at her. So Nianxue pulled her into the house to comb her hair, while Li Shi stayed outside to wait.
Seeing that no one was around, she went to the parrot's cage and fed it some rice. The parrot pecked at the rice with a thumping sound as Li fed it.
"Madam, it seems that Lady Niu is quite tight-lipped; she won't utter a single word," Yu Shan whispered.
"The Crown Prince doesn't expect me to get anything out of her anyway, so be it," Li said calmly.
When Lanqin finished preparing, she came out and saw Li Shi smiling and teasing the parrot. Lanqin said, "This parrot is really intelligent. If you teach it to say something, it can learn it immediately."
“My dear sister, you may not know this, but this parrot is a bougainvillea, and its specialty is learning languages from people. I’ve raised it for several years, and now I’m letting it keep you company,” said Mrs. Li.
The two, accompanied by their maids, left the Fourth Prince's residence and walked along the long palace road towards the Imperial Garden. Lanqin suddenly remembered Zheng Chunhua, who lived in Shufangzhai not far from the Imperial Garden, and then thought of the unsubstantiated rumors about her and the Crown Prince, so she suppressed her desire to ask.
"Sister, where are you from, and when did you enter the palace?" Lanqin asked about Li's family background when she had nothing to talk about.
"I am a member of the Han Banner Army, from Chongqing. It's been many years since I've been back to see my father and mother." Li seemed to be recalling the situation before she entered the palace, which was more than ten years ago.
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