Transmigrator meets Reincarnator

Ch. 24 Dowry

Senior Servant Liu was smiling as she passed a white bowl containing the hasma to Chu Lian. "Third Young Madam, you're quite lucky, aren't you? Even the Empress Dowager might only get to eat hasma once or twice a year. You've managed to come at just the right time to have some."

Chu Lian felt awkward and wanted to cry. She didn't want to be here right now, okay? Not if it meant she had to eat that!

Finally, she had no other choice. Chu Lian forced that small bowl of black hasma into her mouth and down her throat. Honestly speaking, it tasted terrible. The hasma had been fried and boiled so much, that it was now too salty to even taste. The only thing her tongue could discern when she put it in her mouth was salt; all of the original flavour had been completely lost.

After she finished eating it, she quickly washed it down with a bowl of tasteless soup.

This meal she had at Qingxi Hall was one of the most painful she had ever had.

Chu Lian had swallowed down the hasma like it was bitter medicine. However, she saw that Matriarch He and Madam Zou were slowly savouring it. They would alternate between taking a single bite of hasma and drinking a mouthful of soup, as if they were eating some rare delicacy. If she hadn't personally seen that charred hasma being split between the three bowls, Chu Lian might even have thought that they had been served different dishes.

All the tea served here was sencha. Chu Lian didn't dare to deviate too much from common sense in front of Matriarch He; essentially, she was stuck. She couldn't ask for another drink, but she couldn't stomach drinking the sencha, either.

After the meal, Matriarch He and Madam Zou were given wet handkerchiefs by the maidservants. They then elegantly dabbed at their lips and rinsed their mouths.

Matriarch He wanted to take a nap in the late afternoon, so Chu Lian took the chance to escape back to her own Songtao Court.

She really didn't dare to stay any longer, lest Matriarch He force her to eat something else equally weird.

He Sanlang still hadn't returned in the afternoon. When Chu Lian got back to her courtyard, the first thing she did was gulp down three cups of plain water before gargling with some fine salt. Only then did she manage to get rid of that strange taste in her mouth.

After being tormented for half the day, Chu Lian was finally able to rest. She leaned against the sofa by the window, relaxing as she enjoyed the cool summer breeze. It was gentle as it blew in from the outside, perfectly comfortable to take a nap in.

Xiyan and the other maidservants noticed how drowsy she looked. They brought over a thin blanket to drape over her before they quietly retreated, leaving her in peace.

When Chu Lian finally woke up, almost two hours had passed. The moment she raised her arm, she caught sight of the red jade bangle on her wrist and thought of what her sister-in-law, Madam Zou, had told her that morning.

She wrinkled her brows for a moment before calling out, "Xiyan!"

Xiyan hurriedly walked in. "Third Young Madam, do you have any orders for this servant?"

Chu Lian got up from the sofa. Her right hand toyed with the lustrous bangle on her left wrist as she said, "Let's go. I want to look at my dowry in the storeroom."

"Ah? You want to look at your dowry?" Xiyan clearly hadn't expected that Chu Lian would abruptly ask for something like that. The dowry had been selected before the wedding, and Chu Lian had overseen the addition of every item on the list. She was probably the one who knew best how much everything was worth. Why did she still want to look at the dowry?