On the bank of the river

Chapter 86 : Dragon boat festival - Preparation

" Hey .... you , stop for a second ."

" huh ....., oh ! " This sudden voice, halted her steps.

"Is this new batch of cloths ?" Lily inspected.

"Yes, senior sister."

"Take it back. Her highness never likes those colourful robes. Tell them to prepare a few more lighter but comfortable costume instead of those made with pearls. I've reminded them for a thousand times already. Pass my warming to them." Sighing , Lily remarked. The maid only nodded as she left hurridly. Out of nowhere, Fei entered the room.

"Hey wait , wait."

Hearing her shouting, Lily looked at her direction and shook her head.

" Take this ... yeah, put this beside that big box." Pointing at the particular direction, Fei patted another maid as encouragement.

" Hey, you ... where are you going with those boxes again ?"

" Elder sister, those are the new batch of shoes." Another maid replied.

"Oh, quickly put them inside the wardrobe. "

Servants were working non stop from yesterday. Preparing new batch of cloths, jewellery for empress while her both personal maids were handling their works by guiding other maids. Meantime, sitting in a chair near her window, Edna was immesed in her world.

Dragon boat racing festival is around the corner and she had lots of things to prepare. This time, after many years later, boat racing is finally going to celebrate on the bank of the river Reu. Unlike other years, where hardly imperial family celebrated the enjoyment of boat racing with commoners ! But this time, imperial family is already preparing for the festival. As a leader of harem, Edna is always doing her part of preparations. Suddenly she noticed a familiar object and she paused,

" Wait."

" Yes, your highness." The maid paused immediately.

" Please come forward." The maid who was just stopped, came forward with the lantern in her hand.

Immediately Edna opened her hand and caught the lantern from the hand of the maid. With a soft smile on her face, Edna opened her mouth and speak,

" Where did you found it?" Startled, the maid maintained her shocked expression.

"Your highness, it was under the wooden wardrobe."

"Oh, you can go back now." Edna nodded. Feeling even more confused, the maid left at loss.

Holding the blue lantern in her hand, Edna heaved a sigh. Before lantern festival , she personally prepared a lantern by herself for her emperor. From her childhood, Edna enjoyed this festival most. With the mind of giving Hui Lee a personally decorated lantern as a gift, Edna prepared it.

She used blue satin paper to built this lantern and painted the symbol of white lotus flower with her own hand. When everything is prepared, certain court lady informed her that imperial family never produced their own lantern and it's not acceptable if empress did this on her own , only commoners did ownself. Edna felt quite upset regarding this.

She had personally asked for one of the reputed palace court lady to help her after the lunar year celebration, who taught several new concubine or ladies about palace etiquettes .

Edna found that properly learing etiquettes from the imperial court lady for some month will polish her behavior more as an Empress. Furthermore, everything she has learned from her childhood to be a perfect empress of Hui, her teachers were not royal teachers of imperial palace. Her family couldn't afford to summon an imperial teacher for her etiquette classes. And she is yet to married to crown prince, so she can't request his majesty for imperial teachers, who taught the imperial family. Whatever she had learned , base on the disciples of imperial teachers and court ladies outsides. Although her etiquettes were enough to survived inside the imperial palace, but it's not enough for an Empress. An Empress needs to learn many things, which can be taught only from the imperial court ladies during her days as crown princess. Because of her problems and constant ignorance of her position, she even failed to get the official imperial decree of crown princess. Thinking about her past, Edna could only sigh.