Chapter 246
The Lantern Festival (4)
After waiting for a while, the eunuch came back with a cute looking monkey sugar figurine and respectfully presented it to Mu Mingtang. Although earlier she said that she didn’t want it, when she saw the cute monkey, she immediately fell in love with it. After taking it into her hands, she kept looking at it with twinkling eyes as if she was reluctant to eat the candy.
Mu Mingtang finally returned to her senses and noticed the surrounding people’s gazes. After looking around, she found out that while others were dressed in neat clothes and standing gracefully, she was the only one behaving like an ignorant child who was excitedly holding a sugar figurine. It made her seem very out of place.
A little princess, who was held by her wet nurse, saw it and pointed to the sugar figurine in Mu Mingtang’s hand and cried out. When her birth mother heard it, she felt embarrassed, so she hurriedly silenced her daughter and asked the wet nurse to carry her down.
The little princess’s mother was not favoured before, but she rose to the position of Imperial Concubine after giving birth to her daughter. However, she didn’t have any real power, so without putting on any airs, she hurriedly got up and sincerely apologised to Mu Mingtang: “Princess An, please don’t be angry. The fifth princess is still young and ignorant, but she didn’t mean to offend Princess An.”
Mu Mingtang was taken aback by the concubine’s flustered apology. To be honest, before she was brought to the Capital, she was very well received among children, not to brag but today she was wearing pretty and vibrant clothes, and with a sugar figurine in one hand, it all made her look even more young and adorable. Mu Mingtang didn’t know what she had done to become such a terrible existence in the eyes of people around her.
“You don’t need to be so worried about it. I know that the Fifth Princess is very young so it’s only normal for her to want to eat candy. Since she likes it, just let her have it.” With a warm smile, Mu Mingtang offered her candy.
The Imperial Concubine hesitantly looked at Mu Mingtang as she passed the candy to the eunuch and told him to give it to the Fifth Princess.
While everything was happening, the Imperial Concubine secretly glanced at Xie Xuanchen, wondering whether he would get upset or not. Not only her, but also those watching the situation around them, were paying close attention to his expression. However, even after staring at Xie Xuanchen for a long time, they found out that he really didn’t care what was happening and simply stood to the side.
The Imperial Concubine couldn’t believe her eyes, and even the Empress, who was paying attention to this, raised an eyebrow to show the unusualness of the situation.
The Imperial Concubine finally reacted and brought the Fifth Princess over to thank Mu Mingtang.
After this small drama was over, Mu Mingtang looked at the various performances and snack vendors under the city tower and sighed. ‘How can we enjoy so many interesting things from such a long distance?’
As Xie Xuanchen and Mu Mingtang had been married for some time, he was aware of her small expressions and movements. So when he saw Mu Mingtang’s eager expression when looking at bustling crowd, he understood what she wanted and asked, “Want to go down and have a closer look?”
Flabbergast, Mu Mingtang widened her eyes and eagerly asked: “Can we really go there? Won’t it cause unnecessary troubles?””
“As long as you would like to.” Xie Xuanchen simply explained, “You wait here for a while, I’ll be right back.”
Later on, Xie Xuanchen walked towards the Emperor to say something. Hearing his words, the Emperor looked at Xie Xuanchen with surprise, then turned towards Mu Mingtang, and finally nodded his head good-naturedly. He started to give orders to nearby guards.
Mu Mingtang, who was paying attention to both of them, saw the Emperor nod and understood that they were allowed to go down. When Xie Xuanchen came back, Mu Mingtang happily hopped over to hold his sleeve, and together under the watchful eyes of everyone, they started to walk out of the city tower.
After walking through the heavily armed guards, Xie Xuanchen and Mu Mingtang soon blended into the crowd, nowhere to be seen.
Jiang Mingwei, other officials, Madams, the royal family members, and even the empress dowager could only watch as Mu Mingtang happily left the place.
The fifth princess, who was still enjoying the sugar figurine, seeing Mu Mingtang’s departure, pulled her mother’s sleeve: “Mother concubine, why can they go but we can’t?”
The Imperial Concubine sighed and whispered, “Because they are Prince An and Princess An.”
Standing on the other side of the tower, Jiang Mingwei watched the guards running down to drive away the crowd in order to escort Xie Xuanchen and Mu Mingtang grandly and safely without any hitch.
When the crowd on both sides saw that Xie Xuanchen and Mu Mingtang had come down from the city tower, they were very surprised and rushed over to see them, but were stopped by the guards at a safe distance. It wasn’t long before Mu Mingtang and Xie Xuanchen walked away, and could no longer be found after mixing in with the crowd.
While Jiang Mingwei kept her gaze in the direction of their departure, a Madam from Duke’s mansion, who was standing near her, sighed softly: “Prince An really adores Princess An. Just like during the New Year’s Eve’s banquet, even at the Lantern festival, Prince An didn’t care about others and was always looking out for Princess An.”
Jiang Mingwei, who was in a bad mood, didn’t want to reply, and fortunately, the Madam had no intention to get Jiang Mingwei’s reply, as after giving her opinion, she soon left.
Millions of people who lived in the capital had come out of their houses to celebrate the Lantern festival, so the streets were packed like sardines in a can. The whole capital seemed to be very prosperous at the moment, but Jiang Mingwei knew, according to the book, the capital was soon going to turn into a sea of fire.
‘The forign spies should already be mixed in the crowd. Where are they and why haven’t they taken any actions yet?’ Jiang Mingwei couldn’t help herself from repeatedly thinking about it.
[TL Note:- “Sardines in a can” means extremely crowded, as in I could barely breathe—we were packed in like sardines. This term, alluding to how tightly sardines are packed in cans, has been applied to human crowding since the late 1800s.]