Chapter 450 Young Master Yu
In addition to the young princess of the Rong Palace, the young lady of the Kang Palace, and Yu Jingyi of the Yu Palace, the empress dowager also invited the young lady Qi Shu of the Minister of War, the young lady Yu of the cabinet, and the young lady Wen Shang of the Minister of Revenue.
The reason why Wen Shang was invited was not only because her father was in charge of the Ministry of Revenue, but also because her second brother was currently a favorite of the emperor.
However, for the noble ladies present, the empress dowager was not a high-ranking figure now. Although she was the empress dowager, her son was in prison and had been demoted to a commoner. Even her mother's family, the Qin Guojiu Mansion, was implicated and had no room for recovery.
Now the empress dowager was only an empty title and had no power.
So her move to invite the noble ladies to the palace was actually superfluous. The daughters of officials were not all simple and easy to fool. They could listen to or not listen to the words of the empress dowager who had no real power.
Chu Qinghuang naturally didn't care about these. As she approached the Ci'an Palace Garden, she saw a young man standing in the plum forest from afar. He was wearing flowing white clothes, had a graceful temperament, and a handsome and elegant profile... Especially against the background of the plum blossoms blooming on the branches, he looked even more cold and noble, and had a melancholy temperament, like the snow lotus of Tianshan Mountain.
Chu Qinghuang stopped and asked casually, "Whose son is that?"
Chu Xuanyi raised his eyes and looked at him: "Yu Qiubai, the son of the Yu family."
Yuanbao frowned, with hidden worries in his heart.
His Majesty wouldn't fall in love with him, right? It was unreasonable for him to appear here at this time, and men were not allowed to enter the harem without permission - even if the Queen Mother invited him, it would not be appropriate.
The Yu family had ulterior motives.
"The Queen Mother invited Miss Yu to the palace for tea. This young master Yu came to the palace on the pretext of protecting his sister, and the Queen Mother allowed it." Chu Xuanyi explained, "The Queen Mother and the ladies are having tea in the palace, and he can move around within the scope allowed by the imperial guards."
"Yu Qiubai?" Chu Qinghuang walked up to the warm pavilion in the garden and sat down, "Yuanbao, go and call him over."
Yuanbao took the order: "Yes."
The palace servants who followed him closely hurried forward to set up tea cups and fruit plates and pour tea for His Majesty.
Chu Qinghuang took a sip of the tea cup and smiled faintly: "There are only so many methods in the palace, and the Queen Mother is naturally proficient in this."
Chu Xuanyi was silent. It seemed that Her Majesty the Queen had already understood the Queen Mother's mind.
The inner court of the palace has never lacked methods and schemes since ancient times. Sending beauties to the emperor, creating various coincidences, and causing visual surprises will have a great chance of entering the harem.
It is common for an emperor to have three palaces and six courtyards. One more or one less does not affect anything. Who knows, one of them may be favored by the emperor and become the most useful chess piece.
But no matter how natural things are, there will inevitably be times when you miscalculate.
Yu Qiubai walked over with his eyebrows lowered and eyes closed, looking like a nobleman. He entered the warm pavilion, respectfully and elegantly lifted his robe and knelt down, with extra courtesy: "I, the humble minister Yu Qiubai, pay my respects to Her Majesty, long live Her Majesty."
"Yu Qiubai?"
"Yes."
Her Majesty's voice sounded cold and majestic: "Raise your head."
As a son of a noble family, Yu Qiubai was born with a good upbringing and rules, and he had the pride of being the grandson of the Taifu Mansion.
He has always been very different from other sons of noble families in the imperial capital, and he has kept a proper distance from the princes. Even though a granddaughter of the Taifu Mansion married the then King Xuan, Yu Qiubai did not get too close to King Xuan.
As for the princess, there was no intersection at all.
Before the empress ascended the throne, Yu Qiubai and Chu Qinghuang had not even had any formal contact, and all he knew about her came from the casual conversations of scholars after dinner.
At this moment, this kind of thing was obviously a bit embarrassing for him, not because of the embarrassment of unequal status, but because his pride as the grandson of a noble family was crushed - and he was the one who was crushed, which made him feel ashamed.
Raising his head slightly, Yu Qiubai lowered his eyes and looked at the table legs in front of him, maintaining a respectful attitude and a little bit of stubbornness that he was unwilling to give up.
"The young master of the Yu family has always been a recluse who has devoted himself to learning. It is rare to see such an outstanding man today." Chu Qinghuang took a sip of tea and said in a light voice, "Are you waiting here on purpose?"
Yu Qiubai's face flushed, and then turned pale: "I didn't..."
"Nothing?" Chu Qinghuang raised an eyebrow, "Didn't you follow the Queen Mother's wishes and wait here on purpose?"
An embarrassing heat swept over him, and Yu Qiubai's face was hot. For a moment, he was speechless and felt ashamed.
His ambition was to be the top scholar in the imperial examination three years later, not to serve the emperor in the harem with his beauty, but the expectations of his family, his sister's tears, and the pressure from the Queen Mother... made him breathless.
What Yu Qiubai wanted to do most at this time was to get up and leave, rather than face the humiliation here - but he knew clearly in his heart that this humiliation was not brought to him by others, but he brought it upon himself.