The Gilded Cage

A’Ning is Willing to Leave Here With Your Majesty.
(2)

Although he was a bit weak and still drunk, he was still a grown man after all, and his strength was not weak at all when he was angry.
This time, he kicked the maid in the stomach and knocked her half a foot away.
She lay curled up on the ground, the breath winded out of her.

“Get out!” Panting, he supported himself on the shelf beside him, his tone full of impatience.
He stretched out his hand to untie his belt, took off his coat, and threw it aside.

The servants of the East Palace hurriedly retreated, and the few servants from Zhao didn’t know why he was so angry suddenly, and they also trembled, but they didn’t dare to leave directly, but looked at Zhao Yue who was aside.

Zhao Yue glanced at him with a frown and waved at the maids, “Forget it, you go down.” Then, she walked to Xiao Yu’s side, helped him into the inner room and sat down on the bed, and said coldly, “Since Your Highness is so Looking down on Lady Yu’s maids, Lady Yu has no choice but to serve Your Highness herself.”

Xiao Yu rubbed his forehead, wanting to tell her to get out too, but he took a deep breath and held back temporarily, allowing her to reach out and take off the hairpiece on top of his head.

Someone brought in hangover soup and warm water.
Zhao Yue first held a cup to make him rinse his mouth and then wiped his body with a wrung towel herself.

It was clearly the same thing as before, but with a different person, and he felt extremely uncomfortable.

The woman in front of her was naturally beautiful, mature, plump, charming, and gorgeous.
Although her movements can’t be called gentle, they were still light.

But apart from bouts of irritability and displeasure in his heart, there was no other fluctuation.

Everything today was not in line with his wishes.

“Okay, you go down too.”

He leaned on the head of the bed for a while and finally couldn’t help but bring the towel over and wipe carelessly by himself.

Zhao Yue watched his movements coldly, and the smile on her face also sank.

“Newly married tonight.
Has Your Highness forgotten why you want to marry Lady Yu?”

Xiao Yu didn’t speak, and the hand that fell beside him slowly clenched the flat cloth.

Zhao Yue looked away, got up and walked to the mirror, carefully took off the hairpin in her hair, removed the makeup on her face, turned her back, took off the complicated clothes, put on loose pajamas, and said softly, “However, for the past few days, please bear with it, Your Highness.”

As she spoke, she extinguished the lamppost in the room, walked slowly to the bed, and lay down quietly beside him.

Outside the Lizheng Hall, there were still drunk guests who had not yet returned, sitting crookedly by the tables, laughing wantonly and enjoying the last song and dance.

In the sleeping hall not so far away, the newlyweds slept together on the same bed, but each had their own thoughts, and they were very strange and indifferent.

In Guizhen Temple, Chu Ning was leaning in Xiao Kezhi’s arms, and her arms were actively wrapped around his neck.

After a while, she didn’t feel sleepy at all, as if she felt that something was about to happen.

Xiao Kezhi was also a little restless.
He stretched out his hand to caress her long silky hair for a moment, took a deep breath, and said slowly, “A’Ning, I haven’t told you about my mother yet, have I?”

Chu Ning nodded slightly, knowing that he had something to say, so she raised her head, lay in his arms, and looked at him seriously.

She had naturally heard about what happened to his mother back then, but it was all from other people’s mouths, what he wanted to say must be what he experienced himself.

“My mother was originally the most common concubine in the Yeting Palace.
She came from an ordinary family, and among most of the maids who came from low-ranking officials’ families, she should be regarded as the lowest-ranking group, but she never complained.”

Lady Wei always felt that she was very lucky.
Most of the impoverished girls who came into the palace with her were orphans sold into the palace by other elders or had brothers they wanted to support.

But she was different.
Her parents were afraid that a tall girl of twelve or thirteen years old would not be able to eat a full meal during the famine in Yanzhou.
They heard that the court in Changan was full of luxuries every day, so they sent her here.

She thought she was the one who was loved.

Until later, when she was on night patrol, she met the drunken emperor and became pregnant by accident.
Although she was named a “Talented Concubine*”, she was neither welcomed by other concubines nor loved by the emperor, and she still did not feel sorry for herself.

*Low ranking but named level of concubine

His mother told little Xiao Kezhi, “Son, you see, when your mother was in Yanzhou, she couldn’t even eat wheat and rice, but now she thinks this bowl of mutton is too much.
Such days are already very fulfilling.
Mother has no other expectations, only that my son can live in peace.”

She was born with delicate features, graceful and dainty, and she was not considered stunning, but she was not inferior in the palace full of beauties.
Although she was often snubbed and ridiculed by others, she never took it to heart, and she still lived with peace of mind.

But such a gentle, beautiful, kind, and sincere woman never received any love from her husband.