Hustle Queen in the Harem: My Consort Won't Stop Grinding

Chapter 70: Chapter 57: Scheming

Liang Yuyin rushed to Yizhu Pavilion as if he had wings.

The Emperor had already chosen a concubine for the night, so the others, knowing their chances were gone, had most likely retired early. But then the Emperor had commanded, "Summon her at once." Liang Yuyin could already picture the chaos at Yizhu Pavilion: Noble Lady Gu, jolted from her sleep, scrambling to prepare.

But when he arrived at Yizhu Pavilion, he found the main hall brightly lit.

Jiang Xian was at her desk, painting by the light of a white wax candle.

When she heard that Liang Yuyin requested an audience and that the Emperor had summoned her, she simply washed her face, touched up her makeup, and boarded the palanquin. "Didn’t the Emperor choose Lu Ronghua’s slate tonight? Why call for me? Could it be that one person isn’t enough for him, and he wants me to liven things up?"

A very bold idea popped into Jiang Xian’s head.

’Could it be that the Emperor wants to do a group project?’

’The saying goes that among any three people, one can be my teacher. I guess I’ll have to participate with the mindset of a student today.’

Walking beside the palanquin, Liang Yuyin nearly tripped. "Your Ladyship, watch your words! Lu Ronghua is not at Weiyang Palace."

In truth, an Emperor sleeping with two women in one night was not particularly outrageous. The red book chronicling the late Emperor’s personal affairs often recorded such feats. If the Emperor insisted on it... even if a concubine felt humiliated, she had no power to refuse.

Jiang Xian’s expression relaxed a little.

’I’ve learned bedroom techniques from the system, but that doesn’t cover group activities. That’s outside my area of knowledge,’ she thought, feeling a primal sense of unease. "Is the Emperor dissatisfied with Lu Ronghua?"

"Lu Ronghua seems to be feeling unwell. The Emperor summoned an Imperial Physician for her."

Liang Yuyin looked up at Jiang Xian, his tone slowing slightly.

People in the palace were experts at saying only half of what they meant, leaving you to piece together the rest. Jiang Xian was equally adept at picking up on subtleties. From Mr. Liang’s tone, she could tell there was something suspicious about Lu Ronghua’s illness. Besides, the Emperor wasn’t so lust-driven that he would impatiently dismiss a concubine for being unwell only to immediately summon another.

Jiang Xian estimated the time.

She suddenly asked, "Did the Emperor only choose Lu Ronghua’s and my name-slates tonight?"

Liang Yuyin was taken aback, his face scrunching up. "Your Ladyship, please don’t make things difficult for this servant."

’That wasn’t a ’yes,’ which means there must have been someone else.’

This, of course, was because Jiang Xian lacked connections in the harem. Unlike other high-ranking concubines, she didn’t have her own intelligence network. Otherwise, learning that the Emperor had visited two palaces wouldn’t have been difficult. Jiang Xian didn’t fixate on who the second person was. She simply wondered: ’What taboo did those two commit to earn the Emperor’s displeasure?’

She recalled how she had paid her respects at Jianzhang Palace that day, and a flash of insight struck her.

In the darkness, she glanced at Liang Yuyin out of the corner of her eye.

He shrewdly met her gaze. The two cunning professionals locked eyes for a moment before she spoke in a measured tone, "If I were to summon an Imperial Physician as well, that would put you in a very difficult position, wouldn’t it, Mr. Liang?"

Liang Yuyin looked away and said nothing.

He didn’t answer, and she didn’t press the matter. She just kept smiling, looking for all the world as if she were in a wonderful mood.

’Sigh!’

’Noble Lady Gu truly has an incredibly perceptive mind.’

’It would be wrong to speak, but wrong not to. It’s astounding how she pieced together the crux of the problem from so few clues, just to trap me with that one question. She’s even harder to handle than the one in Zhaoyang Palace—’

’When the Noble Consort tries to squeeze information out of an Imperial Eunuch, she practically recites her family history, going on about how powerful and imposing her father and brother are. If the eunuch doesn’t talk, she claims he’s betraying the soldiers on the front lines and should be sent to a military tribunal. But as long as you grit your teeth and stay quiet, she can’t figure anything out on her own. She’ll just put on a show of authority, huff, and walk away.’

At night, the walkways of the Imperial Palace seemed narrower than usual. Walking between the tall, imposing walls on either side, if one looked up, the sky was framed into a long rectangle.

Soon, they arrived at Weiyang Palace.

Liang Yuyin supported her arm as she stepped onto a little eunuch’s back to dismount the palanquin.

Weiyang Palace was deathly quiet, the only sound the soft shuffle of shoes on flagstones. Liang Yuyin drew out his words as he announced, "Noble Lady Gu has arrived—"

And just like that, she walked inside.

※

The Emperor sat in his study, flipping through memorials. The words seemed to dance with a will of their own, and he couldn’t focus on them at all.

He had no choice but to pick out the trivial greeting memorials and give them perfunctory replies.

With the Longevity Festival just over, some of the late memorials were rather comical. One read: "Petitioning to travel to the capital to offer congratulations for the Longevity Festival, praying for the Emperor’s permission." A closer look revealed it was from a minor official in some backwater province. The Emperor couldn’t help but chuckle, and he wrote back a simple reply: "You may come next year."

When he saw the memorial submitted by Lu Zhangyuan, the Emperor couldn’t help but think of Lu Ronghua, whose name-slate he had withdrawn.

His feelings toward Lu Ronghua were quite complex.

From a modern perspective, an emperor with a harem of three thousand would be the world’s biggest scumbag, completely lacking in male virtue. But by the standards of his time, the Emperor was actually quite observant of the rules. Beyond the regulations, he was even sentimental about past affections. A concubine who had managed to become the master of her own palace would not be treated too harshly by the Imperial Household, even if she fell out of favor.

The Emperor couldn’t understand why Lu Ronghua would think to feign illness to win his favor.

’What’s the connection between being sick and pleasing me?’

’Is getting sick a good thing?’

He wished everyone in the Six Palaces could be free of illness. Forget the concubines and his children—he didn’t even want the palace maids and eunuchs getting sick and being unable to perform their duties. That was why he had expended so much effort to improve sanitation in the Imperial Palace, an issue the late Emperor had neglected. Since his ascension, instances of Palace Attendants falling ill from contaminated water had dropped significantly.

Lu Ronghua’s "sickly beauty" act had not only hit one of the Emperor’s triggers, but he genuinely couldn’t comprehend her motives. It’s difficult to develop feelings for a creature you can’t understand. Spend too much time with one, and they start to seem like a paramecium; a spiritual form of reproductive isolation exists between you.

What displeased the Emperor even more was that he felt his good intentions had been betrayed.

When Lu Ronghua had complained of a pain in her chest, he had been genuinely worried and was prepared to have the Imperial Physician give her a thorough examination. He had even planned on not summoning anyone else that night, out of consideration for her feelings.

And the result?

It turned out she was just trying to be coy with him.

The straightforward Emperor was completely baffled and felt like he’d been made a fool of.

Another important reason was that Lu Ronghua’s gesture of clutching her heart was a very good imitation of Jiang Xian, which showed how deeply that scene in Jianzhang Palace had been engraved in her mind. But she was not Jiang Xian. She didn’t have the Little Pitiful Halo, nor the aesthetically pleasing pale face. The more she reminded the Emperor of Jiang Xian, the more her knockoff version seemed affected and artificial.

Lu Ronghua felt her imitation was excellent and that she was no different from Jiang Xian.

But the Emperor felt she was far from it.

’She copied a popular trend without grasping its essence, and in the process, lost her own unique qualities.’

Even the eunuchs and palace maids attending the Emperor were secretly alarmed. ’The Emperor is truly angry this time. Lu Ronghua will probably be given the cold shoulder for a while.’

Hearing the announcement "Noble Lady Gu has arrived—", the Emperor didn’t even put down his brush. Dark clouds still gathered on his brow, his face three parts colder than the snow-covered pine trees outside.

"This servant greets the Emperor."

Jiang Xian, dressed in an aquamarine palace dress, gracefully curtsied.

Only after she had completed the full salutation did the Emperor bid her rise.