After few moments the royal family arrived in the imperial grand hall as the drum rolled loudly indicating their entry.
Emperor Mu walked in first in his dragon robe embroidered with nine yellow dragons and five-hued auspicious cloud patterns. He was followed by Imperial concubine Nagong who was wearing a hanfu made of purple embroidery brocade. Her hair was tied into high bun using a beautiful phoenix patterned hairpin. Finally Crown Prince Mu Yi came with his golden dragon embroidered robe. He looked like a miniature version of Emperor Mu with the similar outfit. Later on other concubines followed the suit.
As they all sat in their respective seat, all the guest bowed and payed their respect to them.
"Long live the emperor."
"Long live the imperial concubine."
"Long live your highness Crown Prince."
The emperor Mu nodded his head and said in a majestic voice.
"You may rise!!"
Then there was a drum roll indicating the start of the event.
Soon an elegant lady walker up the stage and slightly bowed to the crowd.
"Greetings to everyone. I, Ling Mei is going to host today's Sakura Blossom Festival.
Let the festival begin."
Lady Ling Mei said smiling looking at the crowd.
There was a huge round of applause for Lady Ling after her introduction.
Lady Ling had a strong natural skill or more like a charm that would make the listener agree or be mesmerized by her words.
'This ability will surely be useful when dealing with crowd of people. No wonder this Lady Ling is hostess for Sakura Blossom Festival.'
Su Yuxin thought while tapping her fingers on the table as she focused on Ling Mei.
Lady Ling indeed noticed the hot stare that she was getting from Su Yuxin. She couldn't help but look for the person who was staring at her intensely.
Soon she found the person behind the intense stare was none other than a beautiful mesmerizing young girl sitting on the front seat.
Lady Ling gasped after looking at her.
Her eyes widened as she kept staring at Su Yuxin. Both of their eyes were locked at each other. Soon Lady Ling broke the eye contact and patted her heart.
She had never seen such a beautiful lady in her life. She was always proud of her beauty but after seeing Su Yuxin she finally knew what a real beauty is. A real beauty that can cause downfall of any country.
The young lady wasn't gusty and arrogant nor was she kind and pure white lotus. Instead she was calm and lazy. She was like an otherworldly being who couldn't bother with mortals like them. But the hidden sharp glint in her eyes clearly says that she isn't someone that can be trifled easily.
Lady Ling was confused as she never knew such a young lady existed in the Wu Kingdom.
'Is she a guest from another kingdom? Or maybe a young miss from a powerful sect?'
Lady Ling thought in her heart.
After everybody started warming up. They talked, drank and ate with each other.
Soon enough the main event started.
"As you all know today is Sakura Blossom Festival. And like every year we conduct a very special event to entertain everyone here. But this year event is more special than the usual one as it was planned by our Imperial Concubine. I believe you all are excited for this special event as it is a talent show. Not any talent show but a special talent show for all the young misses of different household. A rare opportunity to show your talent in front of the imperial family."
Lady Ling slowly said in her enchanting voice.
Everyone invited in the events where nobles from different households. They weren't fools and clearly knew about Imperial Concubine plan already. It might have been a talent show for different young miss on the surface. But the real reason of this special event was to see the talent of different young misses to choose a perfect candidate to be wife of her son the crown prince. The candidate who will be future crown Princess. And also the concubines.
Hearing Lady Ling words many young misses of different households were bursting with joy. This was an opportunity to fight for. Even if they couldn't be crown princess, they could at least be a consort or concubine if they could catch his Highness Crown Prince Mu Yi attention. And if they were lucky to be crown princess the would get a chance to be an empress, the mother of the nation.
Xue Xian suddenly got her deflated confidence back. She already knew about the talent show from crown prince Mu Yi. So she had been practicing her guzheng for several days mastering it to near perfection.
Xue Xian smirked in an evil manner as she looked towards Su Yuxin wanting to see her get nervous or scared.
But to her surprise there was no emotion on Su Yuxin face nor was she scared nor nervous instead she looked bored.
Su Yuxin had already yawned couple of times in boredom as there was nothing interesting about this event for her. A total waste of time and nothing more.
Xue Xian gritted her teeth in anger.
'Keep pretending bitch. Soon you will embarrass yourself and be the biggest laughing stock in the whole Wu Kingdom.'
Su Yuxin could feel the hateful glare coming from Xue Xian but she didn't care about it.
'Glare as much as you can, it's not going to hurt me anyways.'
Su Yuxin shrugged and focused her attention on eating instead.
Lu Xiu peeled the grapes and put in front of her young miss mouth. Su Yuxin who was sleeping slowly opened her eyes and ate the grapes in front her. Some had seeds inside them but Lu Xiu used her spiritual energy to pull out the seeds for her. The grapes were seedless and sweet.