This woman’s cheeks were slightly protruded from her face, and her face was unusually gaunt without any extra flesh on it. Her eyes were penetrating and spirited, and Qiao Mu felt that that woman seemingly swept a glance across her face while standing up.
That gaze was one that made others displeased.
“Vassal King Consort of An’nan, what do you have to say.” The queen’s tone when speaking to Wu Hongmo was still relatively harmonious.
“Your Majesty the Queen, my niece Wu Xiaosu has newly learned a rather interesting fan dance. How about having her dance for the queen to temporarily liven things up?”
The queen nodded slightly. “Very well.”
The 18-year-old girl called Wu Xiaosu must have made prior preparations, since just as the queen gave her consent, she, under a royal maid’s guidance, led 15 backup dancers into Brilliant Sun Hall. Wearing a sheer and flowing long pink dress, she was proudly holding her head up high and puffing her chest out as she walked to the front.
“Greetings to Your Majesty the Queen.” Wu Xiaosu and the group of girls curtsied and chimed in chorus.
“You can rise. Wu Xiaosu? Is she the Wu Family’s eldest daughter?” The queen asked lightly.
The Vassal King Consort of An’nan nodded with a smile. “Reporting to Your Majesty, she is indeed the Wu Family’s eldest daughter.”
This smile further deepened the Vassal King Consort of An’nan’s protruding cheekbones.
“Xiaosu will humbly be showing her inadequacies now.” The Wu Estate’s eldest miss, Wu Xiaosu, curtsied again before turning to the two backup dancers behind her and sending them a look.
Instantly, the sounds of a zither alongside bamboo chimes rang out melodiously. Wu Xiaosu’s body curved backwards into a very exaggerated semiarc, her waist so delicate that it could practically snap.
Swish. A pink feather fan slid out from her sleeve, which she then used to shield half of her exquisite face.
With 16 young and pretty young girls performing the fan dance, it appeared very splendid and magnificent. Each of their movements could even form its own beautiful picture.
The stoic face was expressionless and used her chopsticks to poke at the food before her before randomly rummaging through them once. However, she soon set down her chopsticks in utter distaste.
As the food had already cooled down completely, it really couldn’t pique her interest. She would be better off eating her Qiuqiu’s piping hot, no-salt mini stew.
To feed so many guests, the food had naturally been sent over by the imperial kitchen. Yet even though the food had been insulated in cotton-wadded brocade boxes, the journey from the imperial kitchen to the Central Palace was very distant after all.
It would be strange if the food didn’t cool down after being carried all the way here on this snowy day.
The little fellow had always been a picky eater, so she was unwilling to eat even a bite of this cooled-down food.
How would her mother Wei Ziqin not know her daughter’s finicky temperament? Her eyes were slightly troubled as she watched her daughter from afar.
“Crown Prince Consort, let this servant pour you some fruit wine.” A royal maid waiting on her walked closer with her head lowered, and she poured a fragrant fruit wine from the white jade flask in her hand into Qiao Mu’s cup.
This wine was brewed from the winter fruit that could grow in icy and snowy landscapes. Not only could you eat its flesh when hungry, but it was also excellent as an extremely rich and fragrant fruit wine.
Most importantly, it was a hardy plant that thrived easily; plus, it had a low chance of mutating. Consequently, the inner capital district had been continuously planting this fruit tree’s seeds on a large scale in recent years, so as to fulfill the people’s various demands.
Of course, the price of winter fruit was still very expensive for the famished and impoverished common people at the lowest rungs of society.
Qiao Mu expressionlessly raised her wine cup and stretched a hand over it to give it a waft.
As a fruity fragrance assaulted her nose, Qiao Mu’s complexion turned frosty in the blink of an eye. She directly flipped her wrist and splashed the cup of superior-grade fruit wine onto the royal maid’s face.
“Ah!”
