"Your Majesty must be joking. I'm a jade carver. I've handled countless pieces of jade. The curved jade is one of the most common jade artifacts. It's not strange for me to have seen a lot of them. How could there be any special connection?"
Lan Miao smiled faintly.
She didn't seem the least bit flustered.
Emperor Jingxiang stared at her for a long time. His lady was really good at acting. It was so much fun.
"Then, my lady, take a closer look at this curved jade. I only recently discovered that the pattern on it has great mysteries."
"…Really?"
No matter how calm Lan Miao was, her heart skipped a beat at this moment.
She took the curved jade from the emperor's hand and examined it carefully.
When their fingertips touched, the slight tremor of Lan Miao's finger was caught by Emperor Jingxiang. He gave a knowing smile. It seemed that his lady was a bit flustered. At this moment, she was like a bird in his palm, at his mercy.
"I'm afraid I'm too dull to notice anything special about the pattern on this curved jade, Your Majesty. Stop keeping me in suspense and tell me what you've discovered."
Lan Miao said softly.
"Well, my lady, look." As Emperor Jingxiang spoke, he held the curved jade up to the light coming through the window. "Inside the holes of the pattern, aren't there three scratches? I never noticed them before. It was only when I compared these two pieces of curved jade that I saw this mark."
Emperor Jingxiang described it vividly.
Lan Miao lowered her eyelashes, hiding her dimmed eyes.
This was her personal little mark. She used to be naive and left marks on some jade pieces. She never expected Emperor Jingxiang to notice it. Her heart tightened more and more.
He mustn't know that it was her.
Now Emperor Jingxiang liked her, but once he knew it was her, would he still like her? Didn't he consider that incident a great humiliation? Would he fly into a rage and kill her on the spot?
Lan Miao couldn't take the risk.
She cherished her life very much.
"Is there anything special about this mark? As a jade carver, I've also met some carvers with unique practices. They would carve their personal marks on jade. This mark… I really haven't seen it before."
Lan Miao frowned tightly.
Her light-colored eyes were like a clear stream in the mountain, beautiful and natural.
Even the way she was deep in thought was beautiful.
Keep acting. Keep it up.
Emperor Jingxiang enjoyed watching his lady act more and more.
"Well, didn't Kai Yun bring several jade carvers? I'm going to have them take a look and see if anyone can discover anything."
He said seriously.
Lan Miao only felt her head spin.
The jade carvers in the Qi Kingdom were quite skilled. Maybe they would really discover something.
No, this mark was unique to her. In the early years, all the jade pieces with this mark had been retrieved by her and were now in her possession. No one would discover it.
Fortunately, she had had a premonition that she might not return to the Marquis's Mansion after entering the palace this time. Now all those jade pieces had been brought into the palace with her.
It seemed that she had to find a way to dispose of them.
Lan Miao made up her mind and felt a bit more confident.
She nodded. "Your Majesty's idea is great. Maybe the jade carvers in the Qi Kingdom will really discover something."
After saying that, she gave Emperor Jingxiang a shy and coquettish glance.
"So Your Majesty still cares so much about the woman from five years ago?"
"…"
Emperor Jingxiang hugged Lan Miao in his arms even tighter. "My lady, are you jealous?"
It was so interesting that she was jealous of herself.
Lan Miao lowered her head and smiled but said nothing, looking like rippling water.
Emperor Jingxiang's heart melted.
He thought he still had to coax his lady well, lest she really get angry and ignore him. He had to cater to her preferences and tie her heart tighter and tighter.
"My lady, don't be jealous. I'll bestow all the jade pieces presented by the Qi Kingdom to you. I'll have someone send them to the Lovesickness Pavilion later. How about that?"
The jade pieces presented by the Qi Kingdom?
Those were top - grade jade pieces that were hard to come by even for a thousand pieces of gold.
They could be worth a great deal of gold.
Hearing that the emperor was so generous, Lan Miao looked up in surprise. "Your Majesty will bestow them all to me? Isn't this against the palace etiquette?"
The first thing she thought of was the palace etiquette.
Wouldn't this attract attention?
Emperor Jingxiang glanced at Lan Miao's eyes indifferently. In an instant, he smiled again. "Why does my lady worry about this? I can be kind to whoever I want. Most of the palace affairs are now in the hands of the Empress Dowager. The Empress Dowager likes you the most. She won't care about this."
Lan Miao was stunned.
It was said that there had never been a queen in the palace. The Phoenix Seal was in the hands of the Empress Dowager. The Noble Consort and the Concubine Jia assisted in managing the six palaces. Now that the Noble Consort was ill, wasn't it the Concubine Jia who was in power?
Or was the power in the palace all in the hands of the emperor, and he could give things to whoever he wanted?
The emperor was really willful.
"Thank you, Your Majesty. I'll cherish them well."
Lan Miao smiled.
But there was a faint trace of worry between her eyebrows, as if she was still worried.
Emperor Jingxiang looked deeply at Lan Miao. In an instant, he was silent for a while, then lifted her chin and asked seriously, "I remember I made a promise to my lady. Has my lady thought about what she wants?"
His gaze was deep and gloomy, putting away the previous smile. Lan Miao inexplicably felt that there was a hidden meaning in his words. She nodded. "I haven't thought it through yet. I'll tell Your Majesty when I do."
"Good. My lady can have whatever she wants."
Emperor Jingxiang hesitated for a moment and then continued, "If my lady thinks she has made a mistake, she can also use this promise. I'll forgive you."
"…Yes."
Lan Miao's beautiful eyes flashed. She increasingly felt that there was a deeper meaning in his words, but she didn't say a word. Instead, she buried her head deeply in Emperor Jingxiang's arms.
Outside the window, the wind and clouds were changing, and the world was vast. Everything seemed peaceful.
But the doubts in Lan Miao's heart were growing more and more.
Forgive?
Make a mistake?
What was the emperor hinting at?
In the afternoon, Lan Miao returned to the Lovesickness Pavilion on the pretext of carving the Kongshan jade.
Emperor Jingxiang didn't stop her.
After Lan Miao returned to the Lovesickness Pavilion, she sent the waiting maids far away. Han Bi and Yan Hong were also sent by her to pick plum blossoms outside the courtyard. Only when there was no one around her did Lan Miao enter the room and tightly close all the windows and doors.
Then, she took out a small wooden box from the cabinet.
Previously, she hadn't considered the mark. Now, thinking about it carefully, only Shuang Xi, Shuang Le, and Xue Er knew about this mark. There was no one else.
Shuang Xi and Shuang Le were in the jade workshop and not in the palace. The emperor wouldn't think of looking for them.
Xue Er was just a child. It was even more impossible for her to tell this matter.
As long as she disposed of these…
Lan Miao opened the wooden box in front of her. A dozen jade disks and jade pieces of different sizes emitted a gentle luster and lay in the separated wooden boards.
At the deepest part of each jade piece, there was that small mark.
The emperor must never see them.
She thought for a while. Maybe she could find an opportunity to leave the palace and then dispose of these jade pieces.
But the emperor was watching her so closely now and even had suspicions. He wouldn't let her leave the palace easily. She could only wait for this opportunity.
But these jade pieces couldn't be left lying around like this anymore.
She had to find a place to hide them.