Fan Wen Chao coughed lightly, took out the imperial decree and read it aloud.
At the top of the inner city pavilion, under the vines that creep hidden all over the walls, a woman reclines on a cool ink and stone chair, her legs crossed, her face covered with a book of opera, a tiny snore coming shallowly from beneath the book.
The breeze blew the book to the ground and the scorching sun swept lazily over her face and the woman did not move, but slept soundly.
After a long time, the noise of the drums outside ceased and the silence was broken by a cacophony of voices. The woman, who was in the middle of a good dream, frowned slightly. Following the sound of approaching footsteps, she closed her eyes and picked up the playbook on the floor and threw it violently towards the veranda.
"Ouch!!" Yuan Shu pretended to exclaim and slapped her heart, "Master, I received the imperial decree on your behalf for the crime of treason? Can't you be a little more gentle? Besides, don't use that force on your own family, the Crown Prince in the capital is still waiting for you!"
Yuan Shu said 'you' in a very smooth manner. She was clearly still the same simple face that she had just given to Fan Wen Chao, but a completely different and cunning look came over her eyes.
"No good, if you want to give an imperial order in the land of Anle Zhai, you have to follow my rules. These literary scholars are the most daunting and I am too lazy to deal with them."
The woman on the stone chair rose abruptly and crossed her legs, raising her hands and dragging her chin, "Yuan Shu, what goodies has the old emperor sent?"
The person who said it was dressed in a sharp navy blue with sleeves rolled back and hem open and close at this outfit, one could tell that she was a man of unpretentiousness. She has lazy eyebrows and a vaguely stern look under her eyes, but her face is awe-inspiring and dignified. This kind of temperament should be strange in a woman, but the person in front of her has been in charge of Anle Village for many years, so it is not unusual for her to have developed this kind of temperament.
"Fifty thousand taels of gold, one hundred thousand taels of silver, five buckets of South Sea Pearls, three thousand year old ginseng...," Yuan Shu took out the decree given by Emperor Jianing and opened it to read aloud with joy, her eyebrows tipped with a look of triumph.
Ren Anle narrowed her eyes and tapped her hand on the stone table, until Yuan Shu finished reading the last reward, then she sighed with grimace. "I regret this....why didn't I take a fancy to that white skinned prince years ago? It was a waste of time, and it took half the world to get these treasures into my hands."
The corners of Yuan Shu's mouth twitched as she looked at her sorrowful leader, and only after a long time did she say, "Master, you are only eighteen this year, which is the right age, really. But if you don't welcome the imperial decree, aren't you afraid that the old emperor will give us trouble when we enter the capital?"
Ren Anle looked and grunted. "Receive the decree? The old emperor thinks that because I live far away from South China Sea, I don't know that the court has given me a position as a child, so why should I stoop low to accept the decree? Where else in the world could they find a daughter-in-law as rich as this one. Who could give him 30,000 sailors and a city for marrying his son?"
me - (٥↼_↼)
The more Ren Anle spoke, the louder her voice became and only when she had finished breathing did she shake her legs and narrow her eyes slowly, "The good thing is that my family is still the deputy general, so when I have enough military achievements in the future I will go into the Imperial city and talk to him. It is their royal fortune that I have taken fancy with his son, and to miss me is a great loss to Dajing."