Su Xi-er walked towards the private rooms in the backyard with her cloth bundle in hand, but couldn’t tell which one of them was hers. After all, they all looked the same.
Just as she was starting to lose hope in finding her room on her own, Tan Ge appeared by her side. “Your room is the one on the leftmost side. Chao Mu told me that she’s currently washing dishes, so I’ll bring you there.”
Su XI-er nodded and followed Tan Ge.
Opening the door to her room, Su Xi-er found that the interior was spick and span, having clearly been washed before. It was even larger than the one that she had stayed in while at the Palace Side Quarters. She noticed that all the palace maids here at the Imperial Library not only had their own rooms, but that their treatment was much better as well.
“Your room is the largest and most spacious.” Tan Ge commented as she scanned the interior.
Su Xi-er opened the wardrobe and started to unpack her clothes; when she came upon the red Chinese Bodice, she turned and gave Tan Ge an expectant look.
Tan Ge understood. “Take your time tidying up. I will sweep the palace paths before coming to help you with drying the books later on.” She then turned to leave.
Although she hadn’t interacted with Su Xi-er much, Tan Ge felt that that the latter was a good person at heart. Hence, it was all the more reason that she was hesitant to go along with Commandery Prince Xie’s plans while he was obviously targeting Su Xi-er. It was just that she didn’t know to what extent Xie Yun would go to in order to succeed.
But even if I’m forced to become a pawn, I won’t hurt a good person like Su Xi-er.
Tan Ge looked up into the sky. I have lost my freedom, but I wonder how Cui-er is doing. Is dad disappointed that I have become nothing but a palace maid who sweeps the paths?
In the room, Su Xi-er took out the Chinese bodice and placed it with her clothes, followed by the jade green dangling hair ornament. It was probably inconvenient for Old Maidservant Liu to bring up the matter of this ornament while we were in the yard since she could tell how valuable it is.
15 minutes later, Su Xi-er was done with unpacking and closed the doors to her wardrobe.
She went straight to the book depository, which held many of the older books in the Imperial Library. Since it was almost winter, she only had 8 hours of sunlight left to complete the task that Grand Tutor Kong had given her.
Su Xi-er worked quickly, having all of the books arranged out in the courtyard by the time afternoon arrived for the optimal amount of sunlight.
An hour later, almost all of the books had been carried outside of the depository.
Su Xi-er was standing on a stool and clearing the remaining few books, but because she had been doing so constantly, her arms were getting sore. The result was a few books tumbling to the ground.
As she bent down to pick them up, she noticed that the corner of one of the pages from one of the books was folded.
Giving it a cursory glance, she spotted the delicate handwriting of a woman, along with the names, ‘Pei Qianhao’ and ‘Xie Liuli’.
Xie Liuli? Could she be Commandery Prince Xie’s younger sister ー one of the three great beauties of Beimin?
Su Xi-er picked up the book and carefully flipped through the pages. Apart from the two names, she also noticed that the folded pages had some words that were marked out.
Stringing these words together, she formed the sentence, ‘Pei Qianhao and Xie Liuli engaged’.
Countless question marks appeared in Su Xi-er’s mind. ‘Engaged’? Aren’t the Pei Family and Xie Family arch-enemies? Why did they have an engagement many years ago?
Chao Mu happened to walk in right as Su Xi-er began to ponder this question. “Su Xi-er, I’ll help you.” She picked a few of the fallen books off the floor before carrying them outside.
