Chapter 114 - 95: Hero Saves the Beauty
"My Lady!"
"My Lady!"
It all happened in a flash. From everyone’s perspective, just as Noble Consort Rong leaped forward, Noble Lady Gu darted out from below and caught her securely. She moved with such flair, like a handsome, martial arts-trained hero from an opera. Her eyes danced with a faint smile, exuding a carefree spirit. "Were you frightened, sister? It seems this is my fault, then." She looked up. "Hurry and help your Lady rest."
When Jiang Xian wasn’t deliberately using a high-pitched, childish voice to annoy the Noble Consort, her tone was much clearer and brighter.
Qiu Yun stepped forward, glaring at Jiang Xian with hatred. She helped up her Lady, whose knees had gone weak with fright, letting her lean against her as she offered soft words of comfort.
After collecting herself, Noble Consort Rong looked at her. "How did you catch me?"
"I’m quick on my feet."
"Then why did you catch me? Weren’t you hoping I’d fall in the water and make a fool of myself?"
"Your Ladyship is mistaken." This time, she didn’t call her ’sister’. Jiang Xian said, "Don’t you always say my life is cheap? My life may not be worth much, but yours is. If Your Ladyship fell into the pond because of me, the crime would be mine."
The Noble Consort had acted rashly, but Jiang Xian couldn’t truly take the blame for it.
If the Noble Consort had truly jumped into the pond out of anger at her today, the Emperor would have most likely taken pity on the Noble Consort, and the Rong Family would have hated her even more. But now, she had first smoothed things over and then given the Noble Consort a graceful way out. The Noble Consort even owed her for it.
The bright sunlight shone down, outlining her in a golden halo.
System: [Subject affected by Fan Filter +1]
The Fan Filter only works on people who already have a favorable impression of her.
Jiang Xian: ’Who’s fallen for my charms now?’
She scanned the crowd but saw no men other than the eunuchs.
The only one with a strange expression was the Noble Consort standing before her, staring with flushed cheeks...
Jiang Xian: ’...It couldn’t be who I think it is, right?’
System: [Host, it is precisely who you think it is.]
Her earlier words had been rather subtle. Princess Consort Zhang understood the deeper meaning, but Noble Consort Rong only heard the surface-level one—that Noble Lady Gu didn’t want her to fall into the pond, which was why she saved her.
Jiang Xian didn’t think much of it herself, but to the onlookers and the person involved, the move she had just pulled off was incredibly cool.
The only three people present who weren’t impressed were Guo Cairen, Zhang Daying, and Princess Consort Zhang.
The first two had been demoted because of her and hated her to the bone.
As for Princess Consort Zhang, it was well known that she loved cats. The cutest kittens bred in the palace kennels often ended up in her residence. In her eyes, even the most amazing human acrobatics were less interesting than a cat rolling over to show its belly. She was the kind of person who seemed allergic to other people. She was simply amazed by Noble Lady Gu’s graceful skill, not "charmed" by it.
While Noble Consort Rong was still in a daze, Jiang Xian took the opportunity to take her leave, saying she would see them later at Changle Palace.
Seeing that the main players in the drama had left, the other concubines also beat a hasty retreat, lest the Noble Consort settle scores with them once she came to her senses.
Noble Consort Rong sat down in her palanquin. Qiu Yun fumed, "That Noble Lady Gu is so good at pretending to be a good person! It was obviously her who was being seductive to win favor, and then she used her words to provoke Your Ladyship—You mustn’t think she saved you out of kindness! She couldn’t bear the crime of causing a Noble Consort to fall into the water, so she had no choice but to act. What deep scheming!"
The bystander sees most of the game. This palace maid saw things with perfect clarity.
But the one at the center of it all thought differently.
Noble Consort Rong couldn’t stand being goaded. The moment she leaped, she already regretted it. The greatest hardship she had ever endured in her life was her wedding night... Qiu Yun was right about one thing: the Noble Consort had a delicate constitution and had never truly suffered.
Therefore, that recent scare had made her feel like her heart was about to leap out of her chest. After being saved by Noble Lady Gu, the suspension bridge effect kicked in at full force.
After Qiu Yun finished her warning, she saw her Lady remain silent for a long time before blurting out a sentence:
"You’re thinking of Noble Lady Gu as far too calculating."
Qiu Yun: ????
"I don’t know if my eyes were playing tricks on me," Noble Consort Rong said, her voice filled with doubt. "When I looked at Noble Lady Gu just now, it was as if she was glowing. She seemed different from before. What did you all see?"
Qiu Yun replied, "I saw no difference from before. She was as detestable as ever."
Noble Consort Rong glanced at her. "That’s biased."
Qiu Yun asked cautiously, "But doesn’t Your Ladyship hate Noble Lady Gu the most?"
This time, Noble Consort Rong didn’t deny it. She simply fell silent.
Back at Zhaoyang Palace, Qiu Yun recounted the strange event to Qiu Tang, who slapped her own forehead. "This is bad. The Lady is always ruled by her emotions. If she takes a liking to someone, she thinks the world of them. Noble Lady Gu took advantage of her this time. She’s utterly rotten to have even bewitched our Lady."
"It can’t be that serious! All she did was catch the Lady, right?"
"Don’t say that. Have you forgotten what the Lady loved to do most before she entered the palace?"
"Her Ladyship loved calling opera troupes to the Rong Mansion to perform..."
As she said this, it dawned on Qiu Yun.
The Rong Family was wealthy, powerful, and influential, and they doted on their daughter. Since Rong Xueshi loved watching plays, they had opera troupes perform for her day after day. She had seen all the popular plays in the Capital so many times she could recite them by heart, so they specially invited troupes from other regions to perform obscure plays to keep things fresh for her.
And among all of them, the one Rong Xueshi never tired of watching was the classic ’hero saves the beauty’ scenario.
Just now, she had put herself right into that role.
She was, without a doubt, the beauty.
And Noble Lady Gu... was the hero, I guess!
Inside the room, Noble Consort Rong cupped her face in her hands, lost in thought.
※
The commotion in the Imperial Garden reached the Emperor’s ears in less than fifteen minutes.
When he heard that the Noble Consort had also tried to jump into the pond to pick a narcissus for him, he first grew tense. Then, hearing from Liang Yuyin that Noble Lady Gu had saved her, he relaxed.
Liang Yuyin thought that Noble Lady Gu might be in for it this time.
After all, his subordinates wouldn’t dare deceive the Emperor and had reported every detail truthfully. They said Noble Lady Gu saved the Noble Consort, but wasn’t she the one who deliberately provoked her in the first place? Even if her merits and demerits canceled each other out, she should still be reprimanded as a warning not to cause trouble.
But after waiting for a long time, all he got was a sigh from the throne:
"My Xian’er is truly the kindest of them all."
Chief Liang: ...
His mood was now exactly the same as Qiu Yun’s back in Zhaoyang Palace. Both of them felt their respective masters had terrible judgment.
※
Noble Consort Rong was a mess of conflicting emotions. It felt like watching a fan-edit of a masked idol, being completely smitten by their coolness, only for the idol to reveal their face at the end... and what do you know, it’s your rival.
The spark of attraction was real, but so was her hatred for Noble Lady Gu.
Jiang Xian, on the other hand, wasn’t thinking about it so much.
Her feelings of love and hate were both faint; her mind was only on promotions and raises. She returned to let Chen Daying see she was back in one piece, setting the other woman’s worried heart at ease. Then, she went straight to Changle Palace to wait on the Empress Dowager. She arrived early, and the nanny told her to wait outside, so she stood there waiting obediently.
Inside, the Empress Dowager had been awake for some time. She, too, had heard about Noble Lady Gu’s wild stunt from yesterday.
"It’s a good thing I was born early," the Empress Dowager mused. "If I were one of the concubines in the palace now, I’d probably faint from shock hearing about what Noble Lady Gu did. She fights for favor so recklessly—who could possibly compete with her?"
The nanny chuckled. "I heard the Noble Consort also tried to jump in today, but she was caught by Noble Lady Gu and didn’t make it in."
The Empress Dowager’s brow twitched. "That child from the Rong Family is a bold one, too. This trend cannot be allowed to continue, or else won’t the pond in the Imperial Garden be full of people?" She then added, feeling the Emperor hadn’t handled things well, "If he likes narcissus flowers, he could have just ordered a eunuch to pick them. Why must he test the concubines like this?"
The nanny asked the Empress Dowager what she planned to do.
"With those two in the palace, I can’t stop the Emperor from thinking about them. I want to leave for Jingxin Temple."