The Legend of Concubine's Daughter Minglan

Chapter 53

With the regulation of maritime climate, the capital in November was extremely cold. Just after lunch, Fang Mama began to turn on the ground heater. In evening, Minglan and her grandma slept together in the thermal room. Warm it was, the air was very dry which Minglan wasn't used to and had to woke up many times to drink tea in midnight. Even so, she could still feel the dryness in her mouth and tongue. Waking up the next morning, Minglan listened to Fang Mama talking in a daze.

The capital was a best place with moderate land that was near to the Emperor. In addition, imperial censors boasted sharp eyes and ears and a well-developed saliva system. Sheng Hong was a cautious man, so he assigned the best row of rooms, still named Hall of Peaceful Ages, to Old Madam Sheng. Wang shi and he himself lived in the main house while Concubine Lin's Forested Pavilion was still located in the west, next to the small courtyard of Changfeng. Changbai had an independent courtyard which was planned to be used as bridal house.

The Sheng Mansion in the capital was not as spacious as that in Deng Prefecture. The three young ladies weren't able to live in separate houses, so a new patch of spacious yard was opened up to build three rows of side houses which were roughly separated by fences and screen walls. Then shelter rooms and corridor rooms were built around each row of house respectively for girl and woman servants. Thus, they all had a quite nice half-independent courtyard. The former Luxuriant Pavilion suggested Hualan's name and Molan and Rulan disliked this name long ago, so this time they made their own names; Molan's was the House of Mountain Moon, Rulan's was the House of Carefree, and Minglan's remained the same.

Minglan was in a daze but Cuiwei and Danju remembered everything. One of them collected luggage to move from the Hall of Peaceful Age to the House of Clear Dusk while the other commanded girl and woman servants to lift, wash and brush things. Only after a whole morning did they finally finish all this. Old Madam Sheng was concerned about it, so she took Minglan to check around in person. Wang shi accompanied them, a bit nervous, and was relieved only after seeing Old Madam nod with satisfaction.

The House of Clear Dusk in the capital had three bigger rooms; the main room in the middle and two wing rooms on the left and right respectively. Minglan preferred to have private space, so she specially ordered to have the bedroom cut off into two parts with Treasure Racks and curtains, turning the right-wing room into a study room. Danju and Xiaotao opened up luggage cases, cleared up the books and ornaments inside one by one, and then put them in order as Minglan wished.

Rulan came to visit Minglan before they finished the cleaning and arranging. Since they've just arrived in the capital, Rulan, by her nature, couldn't make new friends so soon and on the other hand, tired of bickering with Molan, so now she had a whole stomach of words to tell Minglan. After Danju served a bowl of hot Maojian tea, Rulan couldn't wait but pushed Minglan into the inner room.

"Sixth younger sister, don't you notice that this time forth elder sister is unhappy?" After a few words of greeting, Rulan started to pour out what was on her mind.

Minglan pondered for a while and answered with hesitation, "She seems alright. I think she's a bit on something. At noon, she came here, had a look at my room, and then left without talking too much." This was strange. Molan cherished her face. Regardless of her opinion, she would always act friendly and find something to say.

Rulan displayed the expression of "I said so" and secretly said in a low voice, "During the time you were not here, she greatly irritated Princess Pingning."

In theory, except for crown prince and princes too young, all other princes of age were sent to remote area—the favored to richer places while the disliked to poor places. However, at present the situation was full of uncertainty. The crown prince was yet to be decided and several adult princes stayed in the capital under the acquiescence of the Emperor. This sixth prince, ranked not too high nor too low, was entitled as Junwang, Ruler of Daliang.