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Empress Dowager Zhuang ate the fruit slices served by Zhuang Yuexi without actually tasting them.
Gu Jiao went to the small kitchen of the palace and made a bowl of sweet soup with eggs for Empress Dowager Zhuang.
Zhuang Yuexi looked at the sweet soup with eggs in the bowl with disgust and said, "You actually feed the Empress Dowager this sort of thing?"
There were meals in the palace that also had eggs, like egg custard with shrimp, egg custard with shark fin, abalone omelet, egg drop soup with osmanthus, wolfberry and pearl... Which person would eat this ordinary sweet soup with eggs?
Gu Jiao didn’t pay her any mind. She walked over, put the steaming bowl of sweet soup with eggs on the table next to the Empress Dowager and whispered, "I added half a spoon of brown sugar in it."
She made it sweeter than usual!
Empress Dowager Zhuang inwardly refused. She was the Empress Dowager of a country, how could she eat something so unrefined?
With a cold look, she turned her face away, but a drool flowed uncontrollably from the corner of her mouth...
As Empress Dowager Zhuang was about to take a nap, both Gu Jiao and Zhuang Yuexi were invited by the palace servants to rest in the side hall next door.
Gu Jiao's background was a bit unclear, but as long as the Empress Dowager didn't drive her away, the palace servants didn't have the guts to do anything to her.
"Both of you can retreat as well. Aijia doesn't like to be waited upon while she is sleeping."
"Yes."
Her two personal palace maids also withdrew from the room.
Empress Dowager Zhuang was the only one left in the huge bedchamber, lying on the wide and luxurious phoenix bed with her eyes half closed and her back facing the direction of the table.
The gentle breeze blew in through the wide opened window.
Gu Jiao added ginger to the sweet soup, and the aroma of ginger mixed with brown sugar filled the entire bedchamber.
Empress Dowager Zhuang tossed and turned and had trouble falling asleep.
Finally, she steeled her heart, got down from bed, and sat down at the table. Then she grabbed the bowl of sweet and sour soup with eggs and started slurping it!
Suddenly, a small figure in dark clothes hung upside down from the beam outside the window, her upended head peeking inside as she called out happily, "Grandaunt~"
Empress Dowager Zhuang’s body shook and she almost choked to death!
She ate the sweet and sour soup with eggs herself and was caught in the act, who could she blame?
Hanging upside down made the blood rush to the top of Gu Jiao’s head, causing her little face to glow red and look adorable.
Empress Dowager Zhuang glanced at her once, and then took another look.
Gu Jiao didn't continue to hang upside down for too long. She held her hand on the head of the window and jumped in.
Empress Dowager Zhuang said without changing expressions, "Aijia just didn't want to waste food."
Gu Jiao nodded her head, "Yes, yes, yes. Every grain is a product of hard work!"
Empress Dowager Zhuang finished eating, wiped her mouth, and said in a serious manner, "It's not very tasty either."
Gu Jiao looked at the bowl with not a single drop of residue left, "..."
Gu Jiao asked, "Grandaunt, do you not remember the things in Bishui Alley?"
Empress Dowager Zhuang was slightly startled, and then said with a straight face, "Aijia never bothered to remember irrelevant things!"
"Oh."
With an ‘oh’, Gu Jiao walked up to Empress Dowager Zhuang's side. She knelt down on one knee, took her hand and looked up at her, "Grandaunt, let me take you out of the palace."
Empress Dowager Zhuang said faintly, "What are you up to?"
Gu Jiao replied, "You're not happy in the palace."
Empress Dowager Zhuang expected her to say, "I'll take you out of the palace to help you find your old memories.” She really didn’t think of hearing such a sentence instead.
Did it not matter to this girl whether she remembered her or not?
Was she really just thinking about her happiness?
Empress Dowager Zhuang averted her eyes and said in a cold voice, "Who said Aijia is not happy here? Aijia is the noblest and most honorable woman in the State of Zhao. Aijia is the Empress Dowager with the power to overturn the imperial court and the common people. As long as Aijia wants, Aijia can get anything under the sky."
Gu Jiao said nothing and simply looked at her sadly.
She thought that Grandaunt forgetting everything made her the saddest, but the saddest person was in fact… her Grandaunt.
Empress Dowager Zhuang dared not look into Gu Jiao's clear eyes, she looked out the window and said coldly, "The Emperor sent you here again, right? So much for being good to Aijia, huh? You're just trying to bewitch Aijia again! Aijia might as well tell you the truth, your trick..."
Before she could finish her speech, she felt a warm and soft touch on her palm.
She looked down, only to see that the little girl had spread her hand open and buried her cheek in her palm.
Her cheeks were soft, with a baby fat that had yet to fade.
Her eyelashes were long, and every time they fluttered, they swept over her palm and over her heart.
Half an hour later, Eunuch Qin came to wake Empress Dowager Zhuang up as usual.
Empress Dowager Zhuang had been in the harem for decades and had always been incredibly strict with her schedule and routine. She never wasted a single moment.
"This servant has come to help Empress Dowager with changing clothes."
After Eunuch Qin finished reporting outside the door, he pushed the door and came in with a set of gorgeous clothes.
But the moment he arrived at Empress Dowager Zhuang's phoenix bed and saw the person on the bed, he was beside himself with shock, "Audacio——"
Before he could say the word completely, he felt two sharp eyes aimed at him.
He turned around immediately and bowed to Empress Dowager Zhuang, who was already fully dressed, "Empress Dowager."
Empress Dowager Zhuang was actually not wearing a phoenix robe or the usual palace dress. Instead, she was wearing… the common people’s coarse clothes.
Eunuch Qin was dumbfounded.
Empress Dowager Zhuang looked at Gu Jiao, who was sleeping soundly on the bed, and said unemotionally, "Aijia is going to make a trip out of the palace, you also go and change your clothes."
"...Yes."
Eunuch Qin complied.
As an old eunuch who had been by the Empress Dowager Zhuang's side for so long, he naturally didn't need Empress Dowager Zhuang to instruct him what clothes to change into.
Eunuch Qin often went out of the palace to buy stuff, so he also had outfits for going outside the palace. He told the palace servants that Empress Dowager Zhuang was practicing calligraphy in the study and reminded them not to let her be disturbed. Then he secretly took Empress Dowager Zhuang out of the palace.
Inside the carriage outside the palace, Eunuch Qin asked Empress Dowager Zhuang, "Empress... cough, Old Madame, where are we going now?"
Empress Dowager Zhuang looked at the vast sky outside the palace, breathed in the air that didn't belong to her and murmured, "Bishui Alley."
That was what the girl seemed to have said.
Situated near the Imperial Academy, Bishui Alley was somewhat well-known, and Eunuch Qin also happened to know it.
By now, night had fallen and all the lights were lit along the streets.
This was her era of peace and prosperity, but the excitement around didn't belong to her.
"It's just up ahead." Eunuch Qin slowed down and was about to turn into the alley when Empress Dowager Zhuang suddenly said, "Stop right here."
"Yes." Eunuch Qin got out of the carriage and asked the junior eunuch to guard the carriage. He then helped Empress Dowager Zhuang alight.
The road in Bishui Alley originally had several potholes, but now they were filled in with all sorts of strange materials, as though every household had filled them in with whatever they could.
"Huiyuan Road," Empress Dowager Zhuang suddenly uttered.
Eunuch Qin was stunned, "Is Empress Dowager... giving this road a name?"
"Aijia don't know." Empress Dowager Zhuang shook her head.
It was just a fleeting thought, and she didn't understand why she said that.
She continued to walk forward, her steps unhurried.
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